“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” – Robert Frost
April is National Poetry month. Poetry is a great way to inspire your learners to be creative and imaginative with a topic. You can introduce a topic with a poem or have your students write poems where they explore various topics. Writing poetry can be difficult for students; therefore, you might want to get your learners to start writing haikus, limericks, or shape poems. Below, are resources and ideas for helping your students learn with poetry and write poetry. Start off with haikus or shorter poems that are easier for all students to create. Get them excited about animating their poems with digital tools and apps. See the slide presentation, Learning with Poetry, and the bookmarks below for more ideas and resources. If you like these ideas then be sure to check out my new book published this summer with more ideas, Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom.
Get your copy of my books, The 30 Goals for Teachers or Learning to Go. Ask me about training your teachers, email@example.com!
Activities and Resources
- Students can use the Poetry Machine to answer questions that walk them through the process of writing a poem. No registration is required.
- The Poetry Idea Machine teaches students about various types of poems and walks students through an interactive to create their own versions of different types of poems.
- Have students create poems with virtual magnetic poetry. Find 5 different themes (mustache, nature, geek, love, poet, and original).
- Students can create poems on Twitter with Twitter Magnets.
- The Shel Silverstein site has several fun animated poems and games.
- Scholastic has several resources and lesson plans for National Poetry Month. Find lessons for children to teenagers.
- Starfall has animated poems for very young children that help them with spelling, reading and phonics.
- Students can create digital poetry eportfolios with free web tools and apps like EduBuncee, EduGlogster, Pinterest, Educlipper, or Livebinder. See this example here.
- Find several digital posters showcasing famous poets and poetry resources on EduGlogster and EduBuncee.
- Check out these 10 poems put into motion by designers.
- Students can evaluate poems or recite poetry with the Voicethread web tool and IOS app. See this example of 4th grade I Am poems.
- Students can create avatars who will recite their poems using web tools and apps, such as Yakit for Kids, Tellagami, and Voki.
- Lesson Stream has video poetry lessons. Download a pdf of activities for each lesson.
- Find several poetry videos and lessons on TED-Ed.
- Students can feel poetry come alive in virtual reality. Try War of Words VR and Walt in the Desert.
- Check out these poetry interactive sites for students.
- Students can play games that involve poetry. Read this article, Games as Poetry.
- Find over 100 poetry activities and templates on this Pinterest board.
- Discover 30 Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month here.
- For more ideas check out my other poetry posts, including 11 Apps for Learning with Poetry and Science and Poetry Writing Prompts.
- For more poetry activities for children check out the article, Rhyme and Repeat: 5 Poetry Activities Kids Will Love.
Challenge: Try one of these resources to get students interested in learning and creating with poetry.
If you enjoyed these ideas, you may want to get your copy of The 30 Goals for Teachers or my $5.99 ebook, Learning to Go, which has digital/mobile activities for any device and editable/printable handouts and rubrics.