Hallway of Mirrors: A Celebration of Poetry

During the month of March, we welcomed writer and teaching artist, Samar Abdul, into classrooms twice a week. Remembering her from last year, children joyfully welcomed her back into the school. For five weeks, they explored several different forms of poetry under her guidance. Children wrote about their favorite places, important memories, experimented with similes and played with two-voice poetry. At the end of five weeks, each child chose one or two poems to share with families at the end of March during our annual poetry reading. These chosen poems were beautifully written and performed. They are shared below. 

It is the annual fund that makes inviting teaching artists, such as Samar, into Lake and Park to work with the children possible. Thank you families, for your generous donations and for making experiences such as these possible. 

Melissa Miller, mother of Jordi and Lola shares her appreciation of the poetry event and gratitude for Lake and Park’s approach to learning: 

This years poetry slam was wonderful. I thoroughly enjoyed it last year. It was my favorite L&P parent event and I feel the same this year. This school always continues to impress me. I think of my education as a child and the poetry my kids are reading would have been considered too advanced for my age.  These kids think wide open and I love that.  The poetry event was so much fun as I loved to hear how these kids think. 

I'm reflecting on why we admitted Jordi to L&P when he was in pre-k.  There were so many wonderful things we saw in Jordi and at the same time they were the same things that other teachers/pre-k schools found discouraging about him. Camille saw something in him when she assessed him that no one else saw.  Jordi wouldn't be the wonderful student and kid he is today if it hadn't been for the wonderful teachers and staff at L&P. 

Thank you! 

Melissa