Today I want to talk about a few ways you can share poetry with children in your classroom, library, or home.
Poetry Break
This is something I came up with as a way to share one of my favorite things with the students during classroom visits. After reading 2 or 3 books, we'd take a poetry break. I'd select a few kids to pick a number. I would then read the poem on the corresponding page in the Jack Prelutsky poetry collection I'd brought. After several classroom asking for 10, 25, 50, or 100, I decided to make numbers that the kids would draw out of a basket. I'd use the same poetry collection until we used all the numbers. I pick the kids by asking who has a birthday this month or next month. You could also do first initials or shirt colors. Larger collections work well for this. In addition to Jack Prelutsky, you could use Shel Silverstein, the National Geographic poetry collections, Kenn Nesbitt, and Karma Wilson.
Poetry Fridays
Poetry Friday is two things. It is a weekly blog roundup. Bloggers post about poetry for children and teens on Friday. Find more out here from Renée LaTulippe. Poetry Friday is also a series of anthologies edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell and published by Pomelo Books. Wong and Wardell created these anthologies to make it easier for classroom teachers to share poetry with their students. Find out more here.
Poetry Teatime
Poetry Teatime was created by Julie Bogart from Brave Writer as a way for homeschooling families to incorporate more poetry into their learning. The official website has a Quick Start Guide, Poetry Books for Every Age List, Themed Teatime Ideas, Poetry Prompts, and Learn about Poets. Poetry teatime could be used by teachers, families, or librarians with students who are schooled publicly, privately, or at home. The possibilities are endless!
Poetry Picnic
An idea from a stay-at-home mom who Blogs at Read-At-Home Mom: read poetry with your kids outside. Add snacks to make it a picnic. See all of Katie's poetry picnic posts here. Katie's poetry picnic posts and ideas for book tastings lead me to create a Poetry Picnic program in 2024. Read all about it here.
.jpg)
