Poetry Month in the Primary Grades: 3 Simple Tips

Every April, Poetry Month used to make me feel kind of guilty when I taught in the primary grades. I'd think,  "How can I teach these little ones anything about poetry beyond rhyming?" This post includes affiliate links, which will provide a small percentage of each sale to me without increasing your price.

And then one day, I realized that I already was teaching poetry! And chances are that you are, too, or you easily could be with these three easy tips!

Tip #1

Use what you already have! Incorporate poetry into the daily procedures you already have in place!

Above all, this means that Poetry Month is a great reminder to build more poetry reading into your daily read alouds. Point out to your students that a poetry anthology works kind of like a chapter book. Read some, put in a bookmark, and then return to it later.

You're probably already reading poems from Shel Silverstein and others like him to your students. But there are lots of sources for poems and songs (which are pretty much interchangeable with poems, when it comes to the little learners).

Here are a few of my favorite poetry books.

 

I love reading poems from a variety of authors. If you're only buying one book, an anthology is going to give you the broadest selection on a variety of topics. With more than 600 poems, the Poetry Place Anthology (at the back in the photo above) is a great collection. Click here if you'd like to take a closer look at this gem! Because this book is arranged by topics, it's easy to come up with a poem whenever you need it!

Have you tried doing a read aloud by displaying the poem on your interactive board? It's a great way to focus on the fact that poems look different than prose. Show your students that a poem has different structure (it's "look"), capitalization, and punctuation, and that when you read a poem you don't necessarily stop at the end of a line.  By second grade, you'll probably introduce the term line break, and see them start popping up in some of your students' writing.

As you're reading, stop as time allows to point out what we called the Beautiful Words - descriptive language and imagery that can make poetry so unique! 

If you make occasional reading of poetry the norm in your classroom throughout the year, you might even find that kids start asking for poetry, and when April comes, they might just be excited about celebrating Poetry Month!

Tip #2

Try writing a poem with your students as a part of shared writing, or as a mini-lesson before a writing workshop lesson.  

Don't be intimidated and think that you're not a poet!  Get your students writing poems by teaching them this super easy format - list poems! 

Creating a list poem with your students will be easy for you to model on chart paper at your easel or on your interactive board.  The skill will also transfer easily to independent writing. Plus, list poems are a writing form that seems to come very naturally to many children.

You and your students can turn just about any topic into a list poem... pets, playground games, kinds of vehicles, dinosaurs, colors,... you name it!

Start with a topic sentence. I like to repeat it twice, and talk about how "that's what some poets do!"  to help your students start to think of themselves as poets. We repeat the line again at the end. Want to give your kids a fun way to remember this? It's silly but we all know that silly works in the primary grades!

A list poem wears a hat on its head and shoes on its feet.

After you've tried a few list poems, it's time for your students to brainstorm some possible topics for you to write together... and then it's time to release your eager young poets to write their own list poems!

 

You might even want to have a little Poetry Festival (Poetry Cafe?) to give your students the opportunity to read their poems to the class.  Celebrate the fact that they are POETS! This is an easily accomplished event (even if you're teaching online!) and a great way to put a check next to some speaking and listening standards, too!

If you'd like to give your students a supportive structure when they write their own first list poems, click here or on the image above to get your copy.

#Tip 3

Choice reading, free time, reading, DEAR time, self-selected reading, ... whatever your district is currently labeling it, this is so important for our students. It's valuable for the newest readers to spend some of that time on rereading. 

And that's where those poems you've been writing will come in handy!

My students always loved reading from their personal Song and Poem Notebooks, individual collections of familiar songs and poems that had been part of our shared reading experiences.

And when you are reading a poem that you actually wrote ... well, that's Literacy Gold, in my book!

Click here or on the picture to read about how you can get Song and Poem Notebooks up and running in your classroom, plus lots of ideas for implementing them in your classroom!

So, that's the 1,2,3 of it ... read poems, write poems, reread poems.

I hope this helps make Poetry Month in the primary grades easy and exciting for you and your students!

Song and Poem Notebooks - A Scrapbook of Literacy Learning!

Hello, Teaching Friends!

Do you use a chart poem each week for shared reading?  Here's a way that you can extra value from the songs and poems that you're already teaching!

Song and Poem Notebooks, aka poetry journals, poetry notebooks, poem anthologies, etc., are a great way to create an individual scrapbook of topics learned, special events, favorite class songs, classic poems and nursery rhymes,... whatever reflects the learning that's happening in your classroom!

Some teachers use a composition book and have their students glue in a copy of each poem or song. My preference is to use a three ring binder.

Now, on the topic of those three hard-snapping, finger-pinching rings. Safety lessons always come first, of course, along with the "responsibility" angle of having the privilege of using "big kid notebooks" - you know how they love that, which in turn helps them obey the safety rules!!

In many years of using three ring binders for Song and Poem Notebooks, we never had even one pinched finger!  Using the notebooks built a certain sense of responsibility in each of my students (close supervision didn't hurt, either, I'm sure!), plus it was always great to see a nearby friend reach over to offer a helping hand if needed.

Where will you find the poems for your notebooks?  Well, there are lots of collections available at TpT, and you can also find many all over Pinterest. The very best source of poems for your students' notebooks, though, is already right in your own classroom. If you are using a weekly poems for shared reading, type up a copy and use it for your poetry journals - instant  readable text, even for your struggling readers!

Think about personalizing your notebooks by using writing about and photos of special events. For example, after a class trip, fill those crazy empty moments at the end of the day with a quick shared writing.  After you reread the chart together the next day, surprise your students with a copy of the text on which you've also included a photo or two from the trip, ready to go into their notebooks. What else could you write about? Classroom visitors, assembly programs, special area teachers (art, music, speech, etc.), science experiments, celebrations, ... the possibilities are endless!


How can you use Song and Poem Notebooks in your classroom?

* Make the notebooks one of your literacy centers, where your little guys can reread and illustrate the poems. Illustrating on the facing page - the back of the previous poem - works well for this, just be sure to have your students use colored pencils for no bleed-through or rub-off problems. Highlighting the word wall words in the poem (don't kids just love using highlighters?), buddy reading, read to a stuffed animal, and read-to-self are also perfect literacy center activities with poetry notebooks.

* Send the notebooks as homework once every few weeks: "Spend 15 minutes reading your special poems to your special people, or even to your special pets! Then write two sentences to tell who you read to and which poem was their favorite." Be sure to send the notebook home during special holiday breaks like Thanksgiving and Christmas, so they can show off their new skills to the out-of-town relatives!

*  Bring Song and Poem Notebooks to your small groups, where rereading is fluency practice is a great warm-up.  For variety at the end of a guided reading lesson, send partners off together to do some paired reading.

* If you keep a stack of familiar poems copied, hole-punched, and handy, adding them to Song and Poem Notebooks is a quick and easy activity for a sub when you get called out to an emergency meeting or have an unexpected absence.

* Send the notebooks home at the end of the year with a special note from you to each of your kiddos- they will remember these special songs and poems long after first grade!

* You can even differentiate with poetry anthologies. Introduce a poem at an appropriate level during small group, and have copies for the students to put in their notebooks.  Seek out poems for those who need more practice on specific sight words, then teach the poem and have students put their copies in their notebooks. Search "Sight Word Poems" at TpT to find some good collections of the latter.


Are you looking for more ready-to-go poems for your students' collections? Follow my K-1 Songs and Poems Pinterest board.

You can find even more at  Nellie Edge resources. She has has dozens, thematically arranged, double-spaced, and ready-to-print!

Happy Teaching!