Lake Forest Park students in grades 3-6 published poems to celebrate April 2017's Poetry Month.  Enjoy reading their poems!

3rd Grade

Third Grade Haiku Poems

4th Grade

Fourth Grade Haiku Poems With Beautiful Images From Nature

After finding an image from nature, adding it to a document and citing it, poets wrote a haiku about the image.  Some of our poets were so inspired they wrote many haiku.  Step into nature with poetry!

Nature Haikus from poets with first names starting with A-H

Nature Haikus from poets with first names starting with I-M

Nature Haikus from poets with first names starting with N-Z

Haiku collections from Stella, Shannon, Rowan, Marina, Isabella, Anica, Alyce, Allison

5th Grade

Fifth Grade Word Clouds

Poets wrote a diamante poem about a cherished object or place.  Then, they wrote a second diamante poem about a person associated with the object or place.  Using the words of their poems, students designed a colorful word cloud.  

Mrs. Keeley's Students Recite Poems
Mrs. Keeley inspired her students to check out Library poetry books and memorize a poem.  A few of her students recited their poems in Library and we recorded them.  Enjoy watching and listening to these terrific poets. 

6th Grade

Sixth Grade Common Chinese Shih Poems About Nature

A common Chinese poem or “Shih" poem is four lines.  Each line has five to seven syllables.

• The first line contains the initial phrase about a natural subject.
• The second line is a continuation of that subject.
• The third line turns from this subject and begins a new one
• The fourth line is the poet’s thoughts (or advice) on the subjects.

You can view more LFP Student Projects here

Lake Forest Park students enjoyed learning Scratch programming in the Library at a recent PTA auction item class taught by Mr. Kleyn on a Saturday morning. Scratch is a free online program developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  Students learn to write scripts that can create animations, games, stories, and more.  To get started, visit http://scratch.mit.edu   Thank you to Ridgecrest sixth graders, Noah and Rebecca who volunteered their time to help out during the class.  

Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park brought Seattle author/illustrator Jessixa Bagley to Lake Forest Park Elementary School Library on Thursday, April 13th.

Jessixa shared her wonderful books, “Boats for Papa” and “Laundry Day” with Lake Forest Park’s three first grade classrooms. In addition to reading her books, Jessixa shared her process for writing and illustrating.  Jessixa walked students through the steps she takes to draw “Buckley the Beaver” from “Boats for Papa.”  Each student received a bookmark with an illustration from “Laundry Day” as a gift from Jessixa.  

Lake Forest Park Elementary students and Teacher-Librarian, Frank Kleyn, thank Third Place Books and Jessixa Bagley for sharing your terrific books with us. 

On Friday, April 14th, Kim Josund and Jean Reid of the Lake Forest Park Stewardship Foundation helped Lake Forest Park students release our school's baby salmon into Brookside Creek, a tributary of McAleer Creek.  

The salmon parr were raised from eggs in our library's salmon tank.  Kim and Teacher-Librarian, Frank Kleyn, carefully scooped the salmon from the tank and placed them into buckets.  The water in each bucket was kept cold and aerated for the journey to the creek with a frozen water bottle and portable aerator.  

At the creek, Kim explained how the salmon would continue to grow in the creek and Lake Washington.  Students learned the importance of keeping local creeks clean and undisturbed to provide the best habitat for local salmon and wildlife.

Holding their salmon in clear cups of water, students hiked down to the creek bank, where they lowered each salmon and slowly poured them into the water.  School counselor, Tom Doggett, counted salmon as students walked to the creek.  He counted 170 released salmon!  

The Lake Forest Park Stewardship Foundation also sponsored a storytelling assembly at the school on Friday from Roger Fernandes.  Roger is a member of Lower Elwha Band of the S’Klallam Indians.  He shared traditional stories with students that conveyed the importance of family, community, and respect for nature.  Roger joined students at the salmon release.  

Earlier in the year, retired Shoreline School District teacher, Jim Siscel, volunteered his time and worked with second grade teacher, April Johnston, to set up the tank and deliver the coho salmon eggs provided by the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery.

Thank you Jim Siscel, Kim Josund, Jean Reid, Roger Fernandes, the Issaquah Salmon Hatchery, and the Lake Forest Park Stewardship Foundation for all you did to help our students raise salmon, learn about their life cycle, and become stewards of the local environment.  We look forward to raising salmon next year!

The Lake Forest Park School Library will host a Scholastic Book Fair from Friday, May 19th through the Open House on the evening of Thursday, May 25th.

Our annual Scholastic Book Fair helps the Lake Forest Park School Library purchase new books for our students to read and for teachers to use in instruction.

We are seeking adult volunteers to help set up, cashier, pack up, and help out during lunch recess sales. If you'd like to bring your children to the set up and pack up, they can help too!

Click here to sign up as a Book Fair Volunteer

Thank you, 

Frank Kleyn
Teacher-Librarian
Lake Forest Park Elementary School