Poetry Power

Extension Activities

This indicates resources located on The Teacher's Corner.

The activities, lessons and resources below are meant to extend student learning during this project. Please note that several of the activities may overlap subject areas.

As you begin to plan your month of poetry, consider printing a blank April calendar to help you keep track of activities. You may also want to create one for your students so they know when specific writing assginments are due.

LANGUAGE ARTS
As part of this project students will be publishing their work to the location of your choice, for the purpose of sharing with other students. You may also consider having students publish their work at KidPub. http://www.kidpub.com/

Graphic Organizers – As you teach students about the various forms of poetry, you will want to use model texts. Utilize graphic organizers during this instruction time as well as during the planning stage of students writing their own poems.
http://www.eduplace.com/graphicorganizer/

If you are looking for a fun, easy and creative display idea, have students use one of their shorter poems (for example a couplet) and create a postcard. There are several different options you can use to create the postcards :
1. Use an index card.
2. Visit Postcard Creator – allows you to create postcard and then print to add picture.
http://www.readwritethink.org/materials/postcard/
3. Send an E-Postcard form PBS for Kids (doesn’t allow for as much personalization.)
http://pbskids.org/wayback/summer/postcard/index.html

Students can use a shape page to publish their poem. They can select the shape that best compliments their poem. (Looking at the shapes may even give some of them an idea for a poem.) Find a variety of shapes here:
http://www.eduplace.com/rdg/hme/k_5/shapebook/toc.html

As you instruct students on the various forms of poetry, you may want to do some compare and contrast. You can examine two different forms of poetry for their similarities and differences, or multiple poems within one genre.

If you teach with the 6 + 1 Traits of writing, poetry lends itself nicely to word choice and voice. Help students get the "biggest bang for their buck" out of the words they use in their writing. Here is a link to the main 6+1 Trait page.

If your students are having a difficult time getting their creative juices flowing, here are several ideas to help inspire them:

• Provide students with old note cards, calendars, magazines, etc. containing photos/images
• View a collection of images/videos (you may choose to show images/video related to a specific topic, or about a variety of topics)
• Students select a subject from your current unit of study in science or social studies
• Take a walk around your school - both indoors and out. Periodically stop and have students make observations using their senses.
• Ask students to interview a family member.
• Students create a list of their "favorites" and pick a topic from there.
• Students create a list of their "least favorites" and pick a topic from there.

Visit the Poetry Lessons page within our lesson plan section for additional lesson plans and resources.

REMEMBER: You may also want to visit our Printable Worksheet page and create your own poetry puzzles.
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MATH
Students can create a survey to learn about the favorite poems or poets of their classmates.

Math Poems
Various poems about math terms.

Math Poetry
"Math Poetry invites students to learn math vocabulary and concepts by writing their own word problems in the form of poems." This link is to a book that you can purchase.

Math and Poetry, Form and Formula
This is a resource for teachers and/or older students.

Mathematical Poetry
A small anthology of resources.

Mathematics in Poetry
This is an interesting article that highlights the relationship between these two subjects.

Mr. R's World of Math - Math Poems
A great collection of math-related poems for elementary aged children. If you are a teacher of older students, you may want to have your students write poems for a younger class.

Poetry and Mathematics
Additional sites where you'll find mathematical poetry.

Poetry for Pi Day
A great resource for older students.

Where Math Meets Poetry Grades 6-12
In this lesson, students identify the algorithm behind Fibonacci's sequence of numbers and then read a New York Times article about how blogger Gregory K. Pincus invented a poetry form based on this number sequence.
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SOCIAL STUDIES
Students choose a poet to learn more about. Be sure to ask them to learn about the people and events that influenced their writing. They can also create a timeline of their poet's life. To help integrate technology, you can utilize software such as Timeliner.

Select forms of poetry or poems from particular regions of your country/world. As you share them with your students, use a map to locate the region of focus.
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SCIENCE
Kids DO Science: fun and games
Read poems and Rap about science!

Poetry and Science
About finding and sharing poetry with young people.

Poetry for Kids
Poems about science and technology.

Science Poems
This site has a collection of poems categorized by various science topics.

Earth Verse: Using Science in Poetry Grades 3-5
This is an Interactive ReadWriteThink lesson - Students shape up their reading, writing, and listening skills in this lesson by creating original diamante, acrostic, and shape poems about science.
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TECHNOLOGY
Acrostic Poems Grades K-12
This is an Interactive ReadWriteThink lesson - In this online tool, students can learn about and write acrostic poems.

Diamante Poems Grades K-12
This is an Interactive ReadWriteThink lesson - In this online tool, students can learn about and write diamante poems, which are diamond-shaped poems that use nouns, adjectives, and gerunds to describe either one central topic or two opposing topics (for example, night/day or winter/spring).

Letter Poem Creator Grades 3-12
Letter poems are a particularly apt medium for exploring a defining characteristic of poetry-line breaks. As students work to transform narrative-style letters (shown at left) into poetic format, they are encouraged to think carefully about where to end each line. Using the Letter Poem Creator, students engage with the medium of letters and experiment with writing them as poems, with attention to why the lines are broken, where they are broken, and how line breaks affect rhythm, sound, meaning, and appearance.

Reading, Writing, Haiku Hiking! A Class Book of Picturesque Poems Grades 3-5
This is an Interactive ReadWriteThink lesson - Students learn haiku, write descriptive poems and share with the class.

Shape Poems Grades K-5
This is an Interactive ReadWriteThink lesson - By selecting a shape, students are learning how to focus their writing on a particular topic. In addition, as part of the online tool, students are prompted to brainstorm, write, and revise their poems, thus reinforcing elements of the writing process. Students can also print their finished shape poems, cut and color them, and display them in the classroom or at home.

Shape Poems: Writing Extraordinary Poems About Ordinary Objects Grades 3-5
This is an Interactive ReadWriteThink lesson - Students select a familiar object online, build a bank of words related to the object, and write shape poems that are printed and displayed in class.

Students complete a Wacky Web Tale online (like a MadLib) that is related to poetry:
Two Cinquains: http://www.eduplace.com/tales/content/wwt_045.html
A Valentine Poem: http://www.eduplace.com/tales/content/wwt_004.html
Main Wacky Web Tales page: http://www.eduplace.com/tales/
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THE ARTS
Peace Poems and Picasso Doves: Literature, Art, Technology, and Poetry Grades 3-5
This is an Interactive ReadWriteThink lesson - Students apply think-aloud strategies to reading and to composition of artwork and poetry. They research symbols of peace as they prewrite, compose, and publish their poetry.

Poetry is an excellent opportunity for students to enhance their work by drawing their own illustrations.
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BULLETIN BOARDS
As you teach the different forms of poetry, display the following:

• Rules for writing this poetry form.
• Examples of this poetry form.
• Information about poets who are well-known for this form of poetry.
• Students examples of this poetry form.
• Attach a pocket to your display that can house planner sheets for this poetry form.

Display the postcards from the activity mentioned above in the Language Arts section.

You can also display the poetry from any of the activities your students complete.
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ADDITIONAL LINKS & RESOURCES
Listen to Poetry
Provide your students with a listening center. This link should take you to a search at Yahooligans. If the resources don't display, simply do a search for "listen to poetry".

Poetry Teachers
A wonderful resource for how to teach, poetry theater and poetry activities.
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