Johnette Downing is multi-award winning children’s musician, author, poet and educator performing concerts and presenting workshops, author visits and keynotes internationally. A twenty-year veteran early childhood music educator, Johnette draws from classroom-tested techniques and her passions for haiku, literature and music to offer educator workshops. For information about Johnette’s music workshops and author visits, visit http://johnettedowning.com and check under Programs.

Time: 1-2 hours
Audience age: Upper Elementary School Educators
Audience Size: Limited to 100 educators
These workshops are also available and adapted for students in the classroom setting.

Using the poetic form of haiku and Japanese style block prints or stamps, educators will learn how to help students create poetry postcards to exchange with students in other regions of the world. Educators are encouraged to move beyond the 5-7-5 form of haiku to teach students to express themselves in a "haiku moment" free from counting syllables. Participants are invited to take part in Johnette’s "Postcard Poetry Pen Pal Project."

Educators will learn to help students experience the joy of spontaneously creating haiku using word magnets and magnetic boards. Participants will be challenged to express themselves with a limited number of words and will discover the power of one breath poems to convey meaning. Students will be drawn to haiku like a magnet after this workshop! An exhibition of the magnetic poems created will conclude the workshop.

Using the 5-7-5 formula for writing haiku, educators will learn how to teach students to combine poetry and music. Using season words, juxtaposition, nature, human nature and other basic haiku elements, educators will write their own haiku and then dissect their haiku into syllables, syllables into beats, beats into rhythms, rhythms into melody and melody into song.

Discover ways to build basic language skills through the creative process of writing haiku. Using words that represent human nature, nature, season, and concrete images in juxtaposition, participants will explore the powerful language of one breath poems.

To request a haiku workshop or information about a workshop, please click here.