Have you ever asked these questions about poetry? The 30 Painless Classroom Poems series makes it easy for you, the elementary school teacher, media specialist, or reading specialist, to share poetry with your students. Whether you already love poetry or you fear or even actively dislike it, these books are for you. The poems, Notes from the Poet, extension activities written by experienced classroom teachers, and tips for using poetry in your classroom will have you sharing poems in no time.

In A Need to Feed, award-winning poet Laura Purdie Salas (author of BookSpeak!, Water Can Be..., and more) shares 30 poems in which predators stalk, pounce, trick, lure, and attack their prey. These rhyming poems, mostly from the predators' point of view, show how animals' bodies and hunting styles are adapted to their ecosystem and their prey. The final word in each poem is the prey animal, so you can also use these as riddle poems, letting students employ close reading and additional research to find clues and figure out the prey animal. Extension activities by Karen Ganon share ideas for springboarding from these poems into deeper learning across many content areas.

Sample:

Great Horned Owl: Cravings Stink

In midnight's black velvet
I silently glide
My golden moon eyes
Expose each place you hide

I tear with my beak
My claws neatly slice-
Well, that's enough detail.
(This story's not nice!)

Last year, all my friends said
My taste in food stunk
But the fast food I crave is
Still smelly old...

SKUNK!

Note: The Great Horned Owl is the only animal who really loves to eat skunk. They also enjoy fox and porcupine! The Great Horned Owl's excellent night vision allows it to hunt at night.

Note from the Poet:

Owls are so gorgeous and mysterious, and I really wanted to start the poem by focusing on that. I thought it would be a nice contrast to the slicing and dicing that comes later. In lines 1 and 3, I used phrases like "black velvet" and "golden moon" to make you picture a beautiful night.

See all of the 30 Painless Classroom Poems at www.30PainlessClassroomPoems.com.

Disclaimer: For those of you collecting all my 30 Painless Classroom Poems books, please note that some information, such as Why Poetry Matters and Classroom Poetry Tips, is repeated from book to book. The introduction to the book, the poems, the Notes from the Poet, and the classroom activities are unique to each book.

As a kid, Laura Purdie Salas devoured books. Her three big sisters taught her to read when she was 4, and she read constantly, ignoring orders from her parents to "Go outside and get some fresh air!" She grew up in Florida and heard these dreaded words year round. When forced outside, she climbed up to her treehouse or lay on the trampoline, reading. Books were magic, and it never occurred to her that real people actually wrote them.

Today, Laura is thrilled to be part of creating that magic for today's kids. She has written more than 120 books for kids and teens, including Water Can Be... (Millbrook, 2014), A Leaf Can Be... (Millbrook, 2012: Bank Street Best Books, IRA Teachers' Choice, Minnesota Book Award Finalist, Riverby Award for Nature Books for Young Readers, and more), and BookSpeak! Poems About Books (Clarion/HMH, 2011: Minnesota Book Award, NCTE Notable, Bank Street Best Books, Eureka! Gold Medal, and more). She loves to visit with students and teachers to share her joy in poetry, books, and language. She is also the author of several how-to poetry books for kids, including Picture Yourself Writing Poetry (Capstone, 2011) and Write Your Own Poetry (Compass Point, 2008).

Laura and her family live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where it's just a touch cooler than Florida!

Learn more about Laura at laurasalas.com