Poetry Friday: A Lesson in Being LOUD!

Happy Poetry Friday! I've been out for a month getting the kids settled into school. But I'm back with a bang! 

Today's post is about onomatopoeia, including a mini-lesson for the classroom.

I picked up Carolyn Crimi’s PB, The LOUDS Move In! at a local SCBWI conference.

(Crimi is a fab speaker, by the way. Super funny and informative.)

The book caught my eye because of its focus on a poetic device kids love – onomatopoeia.

When the Loud family moves in to Earmuffle Avenue, the reclusive neighbors are in for a shock. The Louds stomp when they walk, chomp their food, bang pots and pans, and have their hilarious dialogue volume dialed to 11.

Neighbors Miss Shushermush, Mr. Pitterpatter and Ms. Meekerton each turn down invitations from the Louds. (Miss Shushermush prefers quiet mashed potatoes to dinner at the new arrivals’ house.)

But when the Louds house goes eerily quiet, the neighbors realize how enlivening the Loud family has been.

Crimi’s book is full of detail, humor, and bright illustrations that match the Louds’ noisy lifestyle. It’s a great way to teach onomatopoeia.

Get your copy ASAP. Carolyn Crimi just sent me word that The Louds Move In! is going out of print.

Here is a mini onomatopoeia-lesson for pre-school through Grade 3.

Read The Louds Move In! to your class.

Define onomatopoeia for them. Simply, it's a word that sounds like the sound it's describing. I use "pop" as an example. We pop a little sound-corn in the class. (We also like to say "onomatopoeia," just because it's fun.

Make a two-column chart -- one column for loud onomatopoeia words, the other for quiet sound words. You can do this on the board, or give older students a hand out to write on.

Ask students to fill in the onomatopoeia words from the book in the appropriate columns.

If children are working on paper, it might be fun to assign partners -- one child is a Loud and the other is a Pitterpatter.

Okay. Your lesson is done. Read The Louds Move In! again. There’s more going on here than exploring a poetic device.

As I sat with Crimi’s book, the Louds dancing, laughing, throwing and shouting began to look like sensory seeking behavior.

And the avoiding, anxious, don’t-break-my-routine looks on the neighbors faces – aren’t they like sensory avoiding kids?

If you don’t know what I’m talking about (“Sensory seeking? Sensory avoiding?”), you’re like me five years ago. That’s when a developmental pediatrician suggested that my eldest’s love for contact sports, crunchy foods, and sneakers tied corset-tight could be a disorder I’d never  heard of, Sensory Processing Disorder. 

For a brief explanation of SPD – check this out.

I wish we’d had a book like The Louds Move In!  when my sensational kid was younger. It would have helped us frame for him the idea that some people like to be loud, active and pushy, while others prefer quiet, routine, and soft white foods on their plates.

Most of all, we could have used the book to show him that seekers and avoiders can help each other learn to cope with their senses.

I recommended The Louds Move In! to Ida Zelaya, who is an educator and consultant in the SPD world. You can find her website, Sensory Street, here.

Later today, I’ll post our conversation about Sensory Processing Disorder and The Louds Move In! 


Meanwhile, please visit our Poetry Friday hostess with the mostest, Elaine at Wild Rose Reader.