Poetry

April is Poetry Month! Here are some poetry resources to help teachers celebrate National Poetry Month or use these resources throughout the school year to practice language and literacy skills.

Poetry Lesson Plans\Poetry Thematic Units\Poetry Activities

• How To Make A Poem: This poetry writing lesson can be used across all grade levels, and equally enjoyed by all as well. Students will first divide and cut their papers, list ideas, similes, words, etc. that they like on those slips of paper, and then try and put them all together like a puzzle. Comes from poetryclass.net designed by The Poetry Society to help teachers bring poetry alive in the classroom
• Fridge Poetry Online: Choose your category, select a background, and then click and drag your words to create your own "refrigerator" poetry with this online poetry game site from BBC. Email the poetry to your teacher.
• Poetry Workshop: Have your students meet the author, then sit back and relax for this poetry workshop, a sure way to have fun in the process of creative writing. A Teacher's Guide is included, along with assessment and rubrics guidelines.
• Chants and Street Rhymes: Several chants illustrate the appeal and rhythm of this classic type of poetry, designed to be orally enjoyed. Explore how chants use rhythm and repetition to create a beat, then draft your own poems and try them out with jump ropes.
• Giggle Poetry - Fun poetry for children
• Write-A-Poem Template:This printable template is geared toward grade one students who are just beginning to explore writing their own poetry. Kindergarten students might also enjoy the lesson plan with a bit of help from the teacher; word banks could be written on the blackboard to either create a class poem, or can be listed for students to draw from to write their individual poems as well.
• Poetry Pebbles - Have your students decorate pebbles with paint, then choose words from a word list to write on them, according to your grade and skill level. You can create your poem as a class once your pebbles are all dry. Make a new poem each week for a changing poetry garden vista.
• Teacher's Guide National Poetry Month (Grades Prek-2) - Several good lessons
• How to Write a Bio Poem
• How to Write a 5W Poem
• How to Write an I Am Poem
• How to Write a Name Poem
• How to Write a Cinquain
• How to Diamond Poem
• Haiku Straw Painting: Learn the form of haiku poetry and Japanese brush painting at the same time with this lesson plan. Students will be creating their own ink and brush paintings in order to illustrate their written haikus.
• Teaching Japanese Poetry Writing - Haiku can be a way through which children can express their inner souls, a window through which one can see a child's world.
• Spring Haiku - Students read and write haiku about animals in spring.
• Turn Your Students Into Well-Versed Poets - More than 20 poetry lesson plans help teachers develop "well-versed" students. Stage a poetry slam for profit, find the funniest poems around, write synonym poems, more! Included: Links to poetry sites, rubrics, and sites that publish student poetry!
• Hink Pinks - Do you know what hink pinks are? How about hinky pinkies or hinkety pinketies? This fun activity builds vocabulary was it exercises rhyming and syllabication. Students will enjoy coming up with clues and trying to fool you or others.
• Spring Poetry Unit - Poems and art activities transform primary classroom bulletin boards and serve as a wall-to-wall portfolio of student work.
• Getting-to-Know-You List Poem - Students construct and illustrate a list poem that expresses personal likes and dislikes.
• 20 Days of Poetry - This collection provides twenty different lesson plans, each with its own format for students to experiment with and "discover" that they actually enjoy this genre of creative writing.