As I've said before, reading and sharing poetry often leads to creating poetry. There are some really fun ways to create poetry with tweens and teens. Today, I'm sharing magnetic poetry, cut-up poetry, and Post-it Note poetry. Most of these are ideas I came across on blogs or Pinterest over the years.
You can buy official Magnetic Poetry® kits from their website here. There are kits for every level and interest imaginable. You can even play with a few of the kits online. Find that here.
If buying an official kit isn't in your budget, you can make your own. Here are some links that show you how to create DIY magnetic poetry:
Cut-Up Poetry is similar to magnetic poetry, but you don't need magnets. You can use words cut out of magazines, packages, junk mail, or really anything to create poems. You can make these temporary just by laying the words out on a table or piece of paper and snapping a picture of your poem. You can make it a little more permanent if you use cut-out words to make pushpin poetry or by gluing your selected words to a piece of paper. See gluing examples above, here, and here. Pushpin poetry as simple as it sounds. You put words on a cork board using pushpins. See an example here.
Post-It Note Poetry is just what it sounds like. You're writing short poems on post-it notes. You could also use index cards or any smaller paper. The beauty of post-it notes is that they're sticky so you can display them. See the above image for an example. Amy Ludwig VanDerwater is writing index card poems for her 2026 poetry month challenge. See it here.
