Pranks and Poetry!

I might have been the most annoying person on earth today.   I seriously could not stop laughing at how funny I thought I was.  I saw this idea on the brilliant Denise's blog! 
http://sunnydaysinsecondgrade.blogspot.com/.  I am so thankful for her sharing her idea!

Yesterday I posted about how bad my second graders were at April Fools Day jokes and pranks... and as their teacher I felt responsible to teach them how to perform a real April Fools Day prank,  even if after the fact.  So last night I put this together using the aforementioned teacher's idea!   I made this fake little newspaper - I used our city and school's real name - but took them off in case anyone else would like to use it.

   I made flyers for the kids and I took in a bag of carrots.   I passed out the flyers and they read them.  They were begging to go out and look for the Loof Lirpa.  I,  of course,  told them that we were absolutely going out and provided them each with a carrot.  We walked far away from the school building (fourth and fifth graders were busy testing) and kids all started chanting "loof, loof, wheeeeeee,  loof,  loof, ahhhhh" while waving around carrots.  I could barely contain myself - I was laughing so hard.   Then.... someone shouted that they spotted him!   Everyone crowded together around claiming to have seen a wing,  a beak,  a shadow!   Great imaginations at work.

 

It started to rain so we went inside and they could NOT stop talking about it.  It is national poetry month and our team has committed to write at least one poem a day with the kids - so I told them to write a cinquain poem about the Loof Lirpa.  They did a great job - I loved the pictures.  They were so into it - asking if we could go out again as soon as the rain stopped.  Then one of my favorite people came into the room and excitedly told the class that a Loof Lirpa was spotted running down the main road in town with a broken wing.   They were so excited and some of them explained that thought they noticed that when they saw the bird!  LOL!

They shared their poems

and I shared mine...

Loof Lirpa

Imaginary, Make-believe

Pranking, Joking, Tricking

I got you!

April Fool

 

 

They looked at me like I was nuts.   I had them write the name Loof Lirpa backwards and they saw it spelled out April Fool.   I then had them look at the name of the author of the article - Bett I. Gotcha.   Reactions were mixed - some cracked up and claimed they knew it the whole time!  Two kids explained that I was mistaken because the picture was too real.   One little one was mad at me for a while (she finally told me she forgave me and that it was the best prank ever).   Everyone agreed it was really fun and we wished such a fun bird really existed.   And I explained that April Fools jokes and pranks should be silly and fun for everyone involved,  not scary, sad or mean.  I am adding a copy of the little article I made as a freebie on TpT.   I am uploading it as a Powerpoint so that you can change it to reflect your town name and school if you would like!   http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Loof-Lirpa-April-Fools-Prank

 

Thank you so much to the Denise who shared her idea!   I am just sorry I can't find it again to credit her!