How will YOU celebrate?
Inaugurated in 1996, April is officially National Poetry Month. Libraries, schools, literary organizations, booksellers, poets and the like, all band together to celebrate the art of poetry. Many teachers choose to incorporate the necessary curricular element of poetry into their plans in April anyway- because it is a wonderful release after testing.
*How can you do it? There are countless activities and many websites with great ideas. I will only take up your time with a few ideas and websites (all which have links to many, many more!)
Classroom activities for National Poetry Month:
-Take a trip to your local library to listen to a poetry reading with your class.
-Invite a poet to come do a reading at your school .
-Re-read some of your favorite poems...and share them with your students
-For older students, try to have them understand that poetry is a great form of self-expression.
-Re-read some of your favorite poems...and share them with your students
-For older students, try to have them understand that poetry is a great form of self-expression.
-Poetry slams are a great way to get them interested in the art of poetry.
-Have your students each be "poet" of the day and start your lesson off with a poem read/chosen by that student. There is a website called a poem a day which can generate and send you a poem a day if you feel your students may not rise to the challenge of bringing on their own...or you can use these to supplement should a student "forget" their poem. A-ha!
-Introduce your students to a variety of poetic forms to expand their knowledge-but to have fun too! From shape poems, to diamante and acrostic poems-there is so much they can explore.
-Online- they can use the word mover at ReadWriteThink.org to manipulate given words and phrases to create poems. This is great for developing creative thinkers!
-Have students create a school poem where each student adds a line to the poem.
-Have students create a school poem where each student adds a line to the poem.
-Gottabook.blogspot.com has reached out to 30 poets who will be publishing 30 poems in 30 days for your viewing enjoyment, in April.
-Keep all of your students' poetry work in a portfolio and have a celebration at the end of the month...perhaps presenting their favorite poem-on Poem in Your Pocket Day, April 29th.
Here are some good sites to help you create some fabulous poetry lessons! Enjoy.
-request your free poetry month poster!
-composing cinquin poems
www.poets.org/poemaday.php
-a poem a day e-mail sign up
-a poem a day e-mail sign up
-poetry prompts by grade level- at bottom of page
-Glossary of poetry terms
