Read Write Think
Poetry Portfolios: Using Poetry to Teach Reading
Over the course of five periods, scholars create a poetry portfolio. They begin with a reading of the poem, Firefly. With a focus on vocabulary, learners reread the poem then look for sight words and other skills.
National Council of Teachers of English
A Bear of a Poem: Composing and Performing Found Poetry
Scholars work collaboratively to compose a found poem from one of their favorite stories. With a finished product in hand, class members form a circle and perform their work for an audience by taking turns reciting one line till the poem...
National Council of Teachers of English
Writing Poetry with Rebus and Rhyme
Young scholars write rhyming poems using rebus. With pictures instead of words, authors create original work about things they love.
Curated OER
Spring into Poetry
How many different types of poetry are there? Let me count them; list poems, haiku, and makes-me-think poems are only a few. Learners create their own poems accompanied by artistic projects such as haiku poems written on kites.
Curated OER
Alphabet Poems
Develop fluency with a variety of works. Help kindergartners use multiple strategies to understand text and decoding. They will create an alphabet poem book on Kid Works 2 to illustrate and write their own poem. In the end, they will...
Curated OER
Short Poems Are Scary!
What do all those chairs and pencils do in the classroom once everyone leaves? Allow imaginations to run wild with frighteningly short poems!
Curated OER
Discovering Poetry
Poetry is such a wonderful form of writing. Young children naturally gravitate to it because of the the wonderful imagery and the rhyming of the words. After sharing some poems with your kids, they work together to create a class poem....
Poetry Society
The Jumblies
Who would ever think to go to sea in a sieve? Only Edward Lear's Jumblies! The poem "The Jumblies" is the inspiration for these poetry reading and writing activities that ask learners to think about how strangers are different, consider...
Curated OER
Language Arts: Scavenger Word Hunt
Participate in a scavenger hunt to find objects beginning with a particular letter sound and take digital photos of them with your scholars. Using software, they find word pictures beginning with particular letters and locate picture...
Curated OER
Language Arts: Bringing Verbs to Life
Kindergarteners create action words collections to use in their own writing projects. After listening to several books, they select action verbs to dramatize and take digital photographs of their acting. Once the photos are printed, they...
Curated OER
"Ing" Words as Descriptors
This clever instructional activity has your students listen to story about bugs, work together to brainstorm list of "ing" words that describe bugs, create t-chart of words, choose words to place in poem template to create class poem...
Curated OER
Poetry Coffeehouse
This resource contains a vague plan for a poetry unit conducted at an elementary school during the month of February. Although this plan does not included detailed instructional strategies, this does outline a basic unit, some creative...
Curated OER
Langston Hughes Was a Dreamer Too
Encourage your pupils to imagine their own dreams for the future. After studying three poems by Langston Hughes and listening to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech, young poets craft their own dream stanza.
Curated OER
A Poetic Place
Here is a nice way to introduce your young learners to poetry and writing their own poems. Children create their own poems about their favorite quiet-time places. After listening to some poems read aloud by the teacher, each child gets...
Curated OER
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: Nonsense Poetry and Whimsy
Primary learners are introduced to Lewis Carroll's whimsical poetry. They read "The Nursery Alice" Carroll's adaptation for younger readers, view story illustrations, listen to poetry and write whimsical verses of their own about food.
Curated OER
Acrostic Book Report
Learners read the story Wild Horse Winter and construct acrostic poems. In this poetry lesson, students use adjectives and events in the text to develop an acrostic poem.
Poetry Society
Tiny by Mandy Coe
Introduce magic and imagination into your classroom with a poetry activity. Learners read the poem "Tiny" by Mandy Coe and use their magic tickets to visit any place they can think of! The final result is a poem describing where they...
Denver Art Museum
The Poetry in Non-Events
The photograph, Nellie and her Italian Soda is viewed and discussed by the class. They are instructed to use the photograph as inspiration to write a poem about non-events, or things that are beautiful in every day life. Pupils use a...
Curated OER
All Aboard!
Learners recognize and identify onomatopoeia. They will read the book All Aboard! A True Train Story, by Susan Kuklin. After reading the book, they list and illustrate examples of onomatopoeia. Then they write a poem or story using...
ReadWriteThink
Word Recognition Strategies Using Nursery Rhymes
As a class, scholars read the poems, Humpty Dumpty, Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater, and Jack and Jill, in order to identify words with the same ending sound. Using their rhyming skills, learners brainstorm additional words from word...
Curated OER
Guided Reading: Three Little Pigs (Plus Wolf: Javalinas)
Guide your class through reading various versions of The Three Little Pigs. Talk about the traditional story line and then discuss a different point of view: Maybe the wolf was just an innocent bystander! This lesson plan, which has...
Curated OER
Rhythm and Rhyme
Youngsters listen to poetry and music to understand that words are made of sounds. In this rhythm and rhyme lesson, students create songbooks of healthy eating songs. They will also act out pantomimes and dance to the music. Each...
Curated OER
Simple Texts for Primary Pupils
Can literacy get any more fun than this? Learners not only have fun, but gain confidence as well when presented with familiar text in another language. Select books, songs, poems, even recipes written in another language, and using the...
Curated OER
Colorful Creative Writing Rebus
Students read rebus samples from various sources. They write poems about colorful places, including detailed descriptions of people, scenery, and objects. Students create small, relevant illustrations to communicate meaning using symbols...