Making Poetry Fun and Engaging at Home
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Spotify5 Tips to Inspire a Love for Poetry in Your Homeschool Setting
There are many benefits to teaching children poetry.
- Improve language skills
- Memory retention
- Enhancing creativity
- Exploring social emotional skills
- Developing empathy for others
- Encouraging a growth mindset
- Promoting critical thinking skills
However, poetry is different from the written structure children are accustomed to and usually taught day to day.
Many adults have had less than exciting experiences with poetry and have to overcome their own resistance to it, if they are going to bring poetry into the homeschool room.
I love poetry and enjoyed teaching it to my middles school students.
I am going to give you 5 tips for creating a fun and exciting poetry unit.
1. Variety
What would life be like if every day you had pizza for dinner?
Even if pizza is your favorite food-it would get boring after a very short while.
There are so many types of poetry.
And these many types span all of the genres.
You can find funny, historical, sad, serious, political, descriptive, and thought provoking poems.
If your child loves-you fill in the blank-you can find poems about it.
The ways poets find to express their emotions or thoughts about these topics are numerous.
I chose just ten, you will notice I left out the poem that it seems every kindergarten or first grade teacher has their class do: the autobiography poem.
See-there are just so many choices!
- Free verse-believe it or not, this type of poem is actually one of the hardest, for me anyway, to write. It has no rules.
It follows no structure, rhyme scheme, or number of lines guidelines.
Sometimes, the words come easier for me, because I have a structure to follow.
- Limerick-these are almost always funny.
They are a 5 line poem with a specific rhyme scheme.
- Haiku-a traditional Japanese poem of three lines with a syllable count of 5-7-5, most often about nature.
- Acrostic-a poem where the first word in each line spells a word or phrase vertically, that the poem is about.
- Concrete-this is my favorite!
This is a poem that makes a picture out of its words.
It can be super simple: just words that repeat like: ear, ear, ear to form the ear of an elephant, or a little more difficult, where the child comes up with words that embody characteristics of the image they are creating like: memory or sociable, but are still repeated to form the picture of the elephant.
Then, my favorite is when you create a poem that is free verse, but in the shape of an elephant, all about the elephant.
- Cinquain-a 5 line poem that flows a specific syllable pattern 2-4-6-8-2.
- Diamante-great for working on grammar!
This poem ends up, kind of looking like a diamond.
The lines go as follows:
1: One noun
2: Two adjectives describing #1
3: Three “ing” action words describing #1
4: Two nouns describing #1 AND Two nouns describing #7
5: Three “ing” action words describing #7
6: Two adjectives describing #7
7: One noun that is the opposite of noun in line #1
- Onomatopoeia-these have no set rhyme pattern or structure, you can or do not have to have either.
You choose a sound like zoom or bonk and follow it through the poem.
- Nonet-I have fallen in love with this one for expression of big emotions in little bodies.
It is a 10 line poem.
Each line has one more syllable than the previous line, starting with 9 syllables in the first line.
The 10th line has only 1 syllable.
- Epic-a lengthy narrative poem about a hero.
“Casey at Bat” is a ballad, but structured like a “mini” epic-so when I teach epics to young people, I love to look at this one.
These poems are fairly quick to write-except the Epic- and you can find examples for most of them on the internet.
I recommend writing one together to model how to write a poem; at first a child can be intimidated by the idea of writing poetry.
Once you have modeled and they see the structure of these, they will find this is fun.
Then allow your child to create a poem on their own.
*I also recommend exploring only one type of poem each day.
All of the lessons here are related to poetry, buy this today for only $19!
2. Poetic Devices
While studying poetry, it is a great time to teach figurative language and terms.
Here is a list of the most common terms your child should know.
Remember, vocabulary by itself is boring!
Teach the devices when they come up in example poems.
Poetic Structure:
- Line-a set of words that begins and ends for specific reason in a poem.
It is much like a sentence, although, it does not have punctuation or grammar requirements.
- Meter/Rhythm-a pattern of stressed/unstressed syllables and the number of syllables, while this sounds complicated, you notice this simply by the way your words sound.
Songs are a type of poetry and they usually pay attention to meter and rhythm.
Also children’s books also use rhythm.
- Couplet-a pair of consecutive lines in a poem that typically rhyme and have the same meter.
- Stanza-a group of lines in a poem that are separated from other groups of lines to create structure, organization, or convey meaning.
- Rhyme scheme-the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line in a poem.
Figurative Language:
- Simile-a comparison between two unlike things using “like” or “as.”
- Metaphor-a comparison between two unlike things without using “like’ or “as.”
- Hyperbole-huge exaggeration for emphasis or effect.
- Imagery-language that appeals to the senses.
- Personification-giving human qualities to non-human things.
- Alliteration-the repetition of initial consonant sounds.
Example: Sharon shoveled sherbert from the deck of her ship. (4 sh)
- Assonance-the repetition of vowel sounds.
Example: I use a night light to make the dark bright. (4 long I)
- Consonance-the repetition of consonant sounds written or at the end of words.
Example: Parker likes to ride his trike. (3 “k” sounds)
3. Explore
What is your child’s favorite subject to read?
What types of books do they enjoy reading or having read to them?
Try to find poems that meet both of these-favorite subject and type.
My youngest loved funny books and cars.
Steer your child to age and interest appropriate poetry books in the library.
Let them choose a favorite.
Have them write it down (yup, actually copy a poem-so old fashioned)!
Give them time to stew on it for awhile.
- What are their overall thoughts and emotions about the poem?
- What do they like about it?
- What do they think the author was feeling when they wrote the poem?
This form of analysis helps your child to develop critical thinking skills.
It is also fun!
There is no “wrong” answer.
You cannot know what the author intended, so as long as your child has a reason for the answers to “these questions” they are “right!”
This fosters positive feelings about poetry!
In Rhymes and Reasons: The Many Benefits of Poetry for Kids we learned that poetry can help with memory retention, but you have to actually practice memorizing the poems.
Your child has the poem written down, if you want to include that as well.
4. Interactive
Poetry seems like a very staid and calm experience.
Have you ever been to a poetry slam?
It is very expressive and engaging.
Organize events where your child can share their own poetry.
This encourages your child to create and helps them learn skills for speaking confidently in front of others.
Ideas include:
- Tik Tok Video
- Poetry Slam
- Library or Bookstore Poetry “Open Mic” Night
- Family Gatherings
5. Media
I love the written word almost always over the “movie” version.
I actually just watched Shardlake on Hulu and then happened to find Dissolution by C.J. Sanson on audio book.
The book is so much better than the television series!
I digress…
Poetry, in its lovely figurative and free form, can sometimes be difficult for children to understand.
There are poems that are put into short clips online.
Many children’s stories are types of poetry.
The Possum’s Tale, which I wrote, is done in rhyming couplets with specific meter.
Many songs are poetic.
You can teach poetic devices and language, often by looking at your children’s favorite song lyrics.
Kids like puzzles and figuring out what is there, but isn’t obvious.
Think of all of the hidden image or “I spot” games they liked when they were younger.
When you approach poetry like a puzzle that they just have to discover, it becomes much more fun and children become more engaged.