Poetry Unit

This week we are studying poetry.  We are exploring formula poems, concrete poems, cinquains, limericks, sensory poems, song parodies, acrostic poems, alliteration,  and free verse poems.  Here are a few things from the unit.

 

Poetry center lottery cards- Keeping with the St. Patrick's Day theme, students were placed in centers based on what they scratch and see on their lottery ticket.

Cinquain poems

Poetry 3-2-1- I closed the first poetry lesson by asking students to complete one of these.  The last row helped me plan instruction.

Concrete poems- Shamrocks outlines were given to the students to create concrete poems about St. Patrick's Day.

Creature alliteration poems- Students wrote five  lines about the name of their creatures, where their creatures live, what their creatures eat, what their creatures like, and what their creatures did to them.  At the beginning of the day, I had them illustrate a creature.  All I said was that I wanted detail and color.  Then later I explained that we were going to make poems based on their illustrations.  They turned out hilarious!

During centers, I held up my flag periodically to read all types of poems for them to experience different types of well-crafted poems.

Poetry centers

Magnetic poems- One of our centers this week is making acrostic poems from magnets.  I will take pictures of their final product and print out their creations.

Students picked a song, found the original lyrics, and came up with their own song parody for familiar children's songs. 

I found a great poem engine on scholastic.com to help them craft limericks. 

Students wrote acrostic poems using their first name letters as the beginning of their poems and another poem using the letters as the last letter in each line.  They enjoyed the challenge of ending in the letters of their names.

 

Sensory boxes were filled with more than one item to represent each senses.  They then completed a sensory poem about the items.

Springtime poetry bulletin board- The kids made formula poems about the memories (using sensory language) that remind them of summer.  They type them into the leaf template.  This is displayed in the lobby of the school.

Culminating activity- two groups used large fly swatters to point to the correct type of poetry we had learned about throughout the week when I gave them clues.