How to Celebrate a Fun Month of Poetry

April is Poetry Month! This month of poetry is a time when students, teachers, parents, readers, and writers celebrate the art and beauty of poems. It’s a fantastic time to introduce kids to new forms of poetry and spend the month diving into some awesome poems. In this post, I will share some fun ways to get students excited for poetry month. Keep reading to learn more.

Have Your Kids Write Their Own Poems

While writing poems can seem a little tricky for some kids, it can be incredibly fun, especially while celebrating a month of poetry! Come up with a few topics that students are interested in to get them started. Start with topics like their pets, their favorite season, or a past event. You know your group of students better than anyone, so think about what intrigues them and use it to your advantage.

Whether the kids have pets or not, have them each choose an animal to write about. Start by inviting them to write words that remind them of their pet. These words will help them when they start forming their poem.

Encourage kids to write about their favorite season or part of nature. Again, have them choose words relevant to the topic for brainstorming. You may also enjoy sitting outside to gather words using the senses. Let kids take a clipboard and pencil outside to record things as they listen, look, and observe to gather inspiration for their poem.

Past events are great topics for poems. It’s a wonderful way to reminisce on fun and meaningful memories. If students are having a tough time coming up with an event, let them brainstorm overnight by going through keepsake boxes or old photos with their families. Have a little show and tell session where they share their findings. It may spark ideas in other students who are still brainstorming and deciding what to write about.

Play a Poetry Game This Month

Create your own poetry game by writing a wide variety of verbs, adjectives, nouns, etc on the board or on slips of paper. Let students choose words at random to create fun poems. This can also be done by cutting words out of catalogs, newspapers, or old pieces of literature.

The kids will enjoy mixing and matching words to create fun haikus or short poems while they celebrate a fun month of poetry. While April is poetry month, these activities can be used any time of year. They’re perfect for the start of a new season to practice using descriptive words and rhymes.

Use My New Poetry Unit During the Month of Poetry

Looking for something in the month of poetry that’s already planned out for you? The New Poetry Unit is all set and ready to go. Just print and use!

The unit covers 5 different types of poems, each with an introduction page to teach students about the genre of poetry. This page works great as an anchor chart in the classroom while students get to know the form of poetry being discussed. The types of poetry covered are haiku, limerick, I am poems, shape poems, and free verse poetry.

Also included in the unit are review questions that highlight the features of the poems, who came up with each type of poem, and the purpose of the poem.

Students will use the planning pages to map out their own personal poems and then use the final writing page to create their final draft. Students love sharing their poetry with classmates, so set aside a day to share out all of the wonderful poems.

Finally, there is a teacher slides presentation that is a great resource for introducing or reviewing each type of poem.

What’s the Takeaway?

Through a combination of fun games, reading poems, and letting the kids create their own poems, you will have a fun month of poetry planned out! Encourage your kids to have fun while writing and use examples from their life and things around them. Poems are abstract pieces of art, so I hope you have fun implementing these ideas and resources!