April is National Poetry Month and a great time to get your students excited about poetry. I loved using poetry with my students. There are so many benefits to adding poetry to your classroom reading activities. Look at the poem below:
There are so many ways to use this for teaching many of the components of a balance literacy program. When students read aloud they develop expression, phrasing, and most of all fluency. Have you ever tried Echo reading? This a great way to get all your students to participate. First you read a line or stanza and then they read it. You can start by having students echo a line and then a stanza. Repeated reading helps develop fluency. This poem also helps to teach vocabulary. Look at the words
blooming and
waddling. Students can act out these words as they are reciting the poem. This poem describes the many signs of spring, perfect addition to a Spring Science Unit. How about comparing and contrasting what happens in spring to what happens in winter? Depending on your grade level you could do a phonics lesson on the "ou" sound in ground and and "ow" as in town. What other phonics lessons can you think of? I always like to add a writing activity with my poems. Students can write about what they like most about spring. This poem is part of my revised and updated
"Spring Poems" Unit . You can see sample pages of all the poems and literacy activities in this packet by clicking on the image below.
Here is a fun free Spring poem called "Ode to a Frog" that you can download by clicking on the image below.
Most of you know how much I love to write poems, chants, and plays and explore the different poetry forms and share them with you. Sometimes a poem just pops in my head when I go out for a walk and I have to rush home to write it down. It's not so easy for me to remember the whole poem as I just turned 67 a few months ago. Last year I put together an April Showers Poetry Unit "April Showers" and then 5 more poems about Rain. I had so much fun that I decided to put them in a new product called,
"A Shower of Rain Poems." Just click on the image below to see sample pages of all the poem and activities by downloading the Preview.
Included in this unit is a Haiku, called "Raindrops" and a Craftivity Activity where students will write their own Haiku about Raindrops and paste it to a Raindrop like the one below. Think of a bulletin board full of Raindrop Haiku.
One of my favorite poems in this packet is "Can You Hear the Rain?" It is a great poem to have students close their eyes while you read it and imagine the sounds and visualize the rain falling. Students will then find and sort plural nouns, adjectives, and verbs.
With April being National poetry month I have put together some great free resources, free lesson ideas, poetry book resources, and freebies for you to access for all your April poetry needs.
First is Scholastic. You will find so many free resources, lesson ideas, and poetry book ideas. Just click on the picture below to access them.
I love all the free resources at Reading Rockets. There are so many links to Learning through Poetry to access including lessons, different forms of poetry, and using poetry for English Language learners that you don't want to miss. Just click on the picture below.
If you are looking for some free resources of different forms of poetry to use with your students just click
HERE. You can also find more forms of poetry with instructions by clicking on the picture below.
Finally, you will find free poetry lesson plans and resources at Education World by clicking on the picture below.
Thanks for all you do to make a difference for your students. Hope you don't have too many April showers!
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