Getting Started with the Second Semester!

My Teachers and I met yesterday in order to prepare for a Unit on Poetry. We are going to change things up a bit, and I will be in the classroom once a week now, for about 45-50 minutes in each classroom.
For poetry I remembered my team mentioning the idea of a 'coffee house' activity, and I thought it would be great for us to do this all out... If we give the kids black glasses, berets and give them a poet "Character" than the idea of improvising and coming up with rhymes on the spot and beat poetry would not be so intimidating!

To begin we are going to work on rhyming, as the previous poems the teachers have been working on with the kids have all been free verse.

First we will watch the video below:

I also like this one:

I will then read a rhyming story to the class.  Our main activities will be a game I came up with called "Hey Cool Cat"  This is where the kids will get to put on sunglasses and I will demonstrate with the teachers how to play. I would like to dim the lights and play a bit of jazz or something to really create a coffee house setting for the students. We may show them this video this week or next to let them in on the "beat poet vibe"

I say "Hey cool cat, where you at?" (in a cool beat poet character)

then the student responds  with an " I am" or "I feel" statement 

Students can then raise their hand to come up with a statement that rhymes. 

Between each statement the kids snap their fingers in "Applause" 

For example :

"Hey cool cat, where you at?"

Student 1: I am at the hill sledding with Bill

*snaps*

Student 2: We're having fun and I feel real chill!

*Snaps* 

I hope to encourage them to have fun and take a risk - and realize that sometimes it can be a stretch to make things rhyme, but it gets easier with time (see what I did there?) 

We will then have the students pull mystery objects from a bag and write a short rhyme story about it and read it to the class. (I would like to do this in first person, and have them embody the object/creature.

I am curious to see how the "Hey Cool Cat" game works, I think it has the potential to be a lot of fun, and We want to use it again the following week, adding rhythm to the mix!