World Poetry Day: Teach Poetry in Elementary Schools & Foster a Love of Language and Literacy

Poetry writing is a vital part of elementary school education. Not only does it allow students to express themselves creatively, but it also helps with developing those essential writing skills. In today's world, where literacy is a crucial attribute for achieving success, including poetry writing in your literacy programme can contribute positively on children's learning and personal growth.

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When World Poetry Day, coming up on 31st March 2013, puts the spotlight clearly on poetry, many school use this as the basis for holding a Poetry Week and focus solely on this writing genre.  But we know that teaching poetry in elementary schools fostering a love of language and literacy so why do we limited to only this week, in a whole year?

Photo by MARKUS WINKLER on Unsplash

Admittedly when I first started teaching poetry writing, I quickly realised that I didn't really know much about this genre either. So I set about an inquiry into how best to teach my students the skills they needed to make a good start. I wanted  to scaffold them for success, rather than frustrating students because it was too hard, confusing or unfamiliar.

Photo by RICHARD DYKES on Unsplash

These hours of research lead to a teaching presentation that I worked through with my students during writing periods, building each day on prior knowledge gained in earlier sessions. It worked so well, that I developed it and published it for other teachers to use, too.

If this resource could help you with teaching poetry elements to your students ages 8+ or of an independent reading age, preview it here on:

TPT

With this structured poetry unit, you and your students can enjoy an engaging inquiry into Poetry as an exciting genre. The unit is chunked into small manageable lessons, to help experience success with discovering a love for reading and writing poems.

But don’t take my word for it. Read these comments from teachers already using this resource.

PRAISE FOR ELEMENTS OF POETRY 

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ "Great resource! Love the IB links too! =0)"

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ "Great resource for poetry!"

To engage students and encourage them to take ownership of their work, incorporating student agency into the poetry writing process is key. Allowing students to choose their topics and styles can help them develop their unique voice and creativity. By providing diverse approaches and choices, teachers can help students develop a passion for writing and language that will stay with them for a lifetime.

Writing Bio Poems is a great way to start a new school year. Using this guided lesson plan will help you to support your students in creating individual and personal poems about themselves.

If this resource could help you with guiding your students ages 8+ or of an independent reading age, to write unique & individualised Bio Poems, preview it here on:

TPT

One approach to poetry writing in elementary schools is to have students write rhyming poems. This type of poetry helps students learn about syllables and phonemic awareness, which is an essential aspect of literacy development. Writing rhyming poems can also be a fun and engaging activity for students, sparking their imagination and creativity. One really engaging & informal way that I introduce rhyming couplets to students is with our daily farewell routine. I display the chart in this product in my room and students pick their personal farewells each day. This is a resource I have used for many years now and one that students always ask for.

If this resource could help you with introducing your students ages 5+ to rhyming couplets on a fun & informal way, preview it here on:

TPT

My favourite approach to teaching poetry writing is to have students write free verse poems. This type of poetry allows students to express themselves freely, without the constraints of a specific form or structure. By tapping into their imagination and creativity, students can develop their own unique voice and style as writers. This approach can be especially helpful for students who struggle with writing or have limited experiences with poetry.

Aside from developing writing skills, poetry writing in elementary school can have a positive impact on children's literacy skills. Poetry provides an opportunity for students to

• play with & analyse language, 
• experiment with words, 
• develop their vocabulary
• to think critically 

All essential aspect of literacy development.

Moreover, poetry writing can help students develop important 21st-century skills, such as communication and collaboration. When my students share their poems with each other, they have the opportunity to give and receive feedback, learning from one another. This type of collaboration can foster a sense of community in the classroom and help students develop important interpersonal skills.

Poetry is a genre that can come into many learning themes throughout the year. Click the link below to preview these guided poetry lessons.

For  themes based around well-being, personal identity & prejudice/ assumptions:

For  themes based around understanding our emotions:

For  themes based around building friendships:

These 2 lesson guides focus on Metaphors & Similes with themes based around I relationships with colours and to suit a unit about insects:

And finally a great one to use at the end of the year, reflecting on the year of learning that has been:

In conclusion, teaching poetry in elementary schools is a valuable way to foster a love of language and literacy. By incorporating diverse approaches and choices for students and fostering student agency, teachers can help students develop a passion for writing and language that will stay with them for a lifetime. So, let's make poetry a regular part of our classroom writing programmes and inspire the next generation of writers!

Thank you for stopping by,

With love, Te Aroha 

Timea 

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Writing Genres - and IB concept keys

Hello friends,

As the end of Year 6 approaches for my students (and with it the end of their PYP), we reflected on the many genre of writing they they have read / written over these years. After they brainstormed all these, I asked each group to select a genre that they felt they knew the most about.

For this lesson I used the following resource (which our school supplied us with) but I traced back to this website where you too can download a set.
http://engagethereader.wordpress.com/

I laminated them in full size and half size for displays and group-work, as well as quarter size and grouped on a ring for individual use.

The students 'blind-drew' a concept key for their group. Using the concept that they had drawn, they discussed their genre of writing. First they came up with questions and discussed/solved these as a group
e.g. of questions for Narrative genre with the Connected key:

How are narratives connected to other writing genre (compare and contrast)?
What connections can I make between narratives I read and narratives I write?
How are the different parts of a narrative connected to each other?
How can you connect the orientation to the conclusion?
....and so on....

We had great fun sharing our ideas back to the class and it gave me great insight into the students' thinking / knowledge around writing genre / conceptual understanding.

We followed this up by allowing students freedom of choice for their final writing assessment piece, helping them to play to their writing strengths. Students could choose between Persuasive, Narrative, Explanation and Recount (personal) as these have scope to show a development of ideas. I really enjoyed marking the variety of writing that we got out of this model. One student wrote a particularly engaging piece about our calendar art lesson from the point of view of her art pencil.

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Poetry - End of Year Reflections Poetry Writing lesson

Hello friends,
It is Term 4 down here in New Zealand and we are all winding up the end of our year with final assessments due soon, Term 4 reports to write and wrapping up our year in general. Two years ago I came across a poem in this School Journal.

This great reflection poem by Maria McMillan, jumped out straight away as a creative way to sum up our year.

And here is a close up of the words:

Aren't they great - you can just picture the year's learning events unfolding through the words. I decided to use it as a model text for my Year 4's and reflect on the year that was. Everyone published their poem digitally as I was teaching a 1:2 digital class at the time. Once we finished, I printed a copy of each poem for the kiddies to take home in their portfolios, and a copy for the wall too. This way, when my new class arrived at the start of the new year, they had these awesome poems from the previous class to read and think about what lay ahead for them.

Here are a few samples from my kiddies (Dec 2011).

These kiddies were all 9  at the time.

I didn't teach this poem again last year because I was changing levels and moving up to Y6 and my new Y6's wouldn't want to know what my Y4's learned about last year. But now that I am about to complete this year, I will do them again with my 10/11 year olds. Simply dying to see what they produce and hope to post samples for you.

If you would like to have a go at writing these great poems with your students, I have written a lesson for it which includes instructions, graphic organisers and teacher models. Student handouts are in both UK/US spelling, where needed. 

These lesson guides are available from both my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey HERE,

and from my website - Help Me Learn HERE

Thank you for visiting,

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Poetry - Write Colour Poems lesson plan

Hello friends,
This next poetry unit on Colour Poetry compliments this art unit I wrote for inquiring into the Element of Colour

This is part of a series on the elements of art which also includes Element of Line HERE and Element of Texture HERE

Colour Poetry is a fun way to explore metaphors and abstract thinking. By comparing colour to objects, actions and ideas, children extend their thinking to encompass poetic concepts.

This unit supports quality writing with graphic organisers in both US and UK spelling, that makes it easy to create quality imagery.

Each student will create a unique poem because they relate these images to their personal lives and experiences. For this reason, it can also work well when combined with portraiture art, like these lessons available HERE

 

Writing frameworks are provided and teacher models with a poem exemplar are all there to guide you through.

 You can grab your very own copy of Colours Poetry over at my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey HERE

or on my website at Help Me Learn HERE

What other teachers have said about Metaphor Poems about Colour/Color!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "A high quality resource. Visually appealing with all related content displayed in an accessible way."

Thank you for visiting,

Poetry - This Is Me poems for back to school

Hello Friends,

My poetry unit called, This Is Me, works really well hand-in-hand with either of the following 2 art lessons.
One year, I tried the half portraits inspired by Kathy Barbro of Art Projects for Kids Here are some more of the portraits drawn by my Y4 kiddies at the start of the year.

I just love how these turned out !

The second one is my back to school portrait unit - This Is Me! inspired by the art of Eden Gosier. You can get this comprehensive lesson tutorial from my TPT store One Teacher's Journey - HERE.

It is also available from my website - Help Me Learn - HERE

What other teachers have said about This Is Me!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "Excellent, easy to follow instructions with beautiful examples to inspire."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ "This was comprehensive and easy to use. Thank you!"

I also use by Biography poetry lesson early in the year as we all get to know each other. It's a great way to become familiar with our differences and to see how unique we all are. Also, to identify the things that we have in common.

This Is Me poems provides an extensive framework that students fill in easily, as its all about themselves. By extending their ideas and exploring synonyms, they edit and improve the images through a 1-3-6 conferencing model. Finally, they select and reject lines to form and publish their unique poems. I have used this model for several years now and always with great success, which is why I wanted to share this idea. Hope you enjoy using it too :)

This comprehensive poetry writing guide can be up shared on large screen with your students as you work through the steps to write great and personal poetry. A teacher model poem is included, one I wrote as a model about my daughter a few years ago, when I first taught this to my class. 

Find this lesson plan in  my TPT store One Teacher's Journey - HERE.

It is also available from my website - Help Me Learn - HERE 

These 2 items are now also available as a bundle from TPT - HERE

What other teachers have said about the Bio POEMS teaching guide

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 'Great for start of the year writing.'

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 'This was a great resource for our poetry unit. Students enjoyed it!'

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ 'Awesome product, thanks.'

Thank you for visiting,

http://www.helpmelearn.co.nz/


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Writing Feelings Poetry about Emotions with Elementary Students

Hello friends,

Poetry is one of my favourite writing genres to teach. But how can we support students to write quality poetry? And something that is new and different from the same old, same old.
My secret is this.
When you find a poem you like, analyse it. What has the author done? There is always a pattern that is identifiable.
Over the years I have had great success by using this method and I am always impressed by the strength and variety that my students deliver.

Poetry is a great way to start the year because it really looks closely at language choices. Also its a  fun way to close out the year as well.

I have started compiling my poetry strategies into units that make it easy-peasy for you too.

 

Emotion Poems is my first unit.  This is one type of poetry I have used when exploring feelings and emotions with my students. It's a great way to help children understand that we need to talk about our feelings, to own them and to understand them, when you address the topic through writing. 

To understand that we all have feelings and we may not feel the same about things or experiences as someone else, is helpful.

Emotion poems pair an emotion with a colour and then analyse it through the senses, using similes. All steps are clearly laid out and student graphic organisers have been created to make it easier for younger students. 

Of course UK and US spelling has been accommodated where needed on these. Share the presentation up on on your large screen, so that your students to follow easily .

Perhaps even model the process by writing your own poem, alongside your students. 

This 28 page unit is available from my TPT store - One Teacher's Journey - HERE

and also from my website - Help Me Learn - HERE

Many teachers have enjoyed using this resource and I hope your enjoy writing poetry with your students too :)

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ "I was amazed at the depth and quality of work that students produced when I used this. Amazing! The best result was the pride they had in what they achieved!"

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ "After teaching my poetry unit, I felt that I need an assessment piece that would demonstrate what students had learnt. I explicitly taught each and step of the feeling poem template and all students produced a wonderful poem that I made into a class book. This is such a wonderful resource."

Thank you for visiting,

Timea

Body Systems #9 - presentations

Hello friends,

Welcome to the final installment in the Body Systems series of posts.

At the forefront of our minds in Year 6 is the upcoming exhibition of learning, next term. With that in mind, I let my students run with the presentations they chose to create for their body system, and give them presentation opportunities, in preparation for the 'Big One'.

First, we had to decide who we wished to share our explanation with (audience) - mum & dad, family overseas, another y6 class, another year level class, the www, etc.

Having decided this, it guided the choice of presentation option, for many students. Others chose an option because they wanted to try something new or they stuck with an  'old faithful' to alleviate some stress.

Next they met in presentation groups to set out criteria for their presentation option.

With the poster/ science board / brochure groups, we held a few tutorials around how to copy their edited paragraph into a Pages or Word documents, add colourful borders, select font styles and colours, emphasise titles and include images. Completed publishing was then loaded up into the class Google Drive (see earlier posts in this series), into the Please Print folder for me.

The website and slideshow groups had tutorials around composition, digital headers like flamingtext and gathering & inserting images, with credits.

Those that made movies needed support about how to look at the camera, while reading from a tele-prompter on the screen & how to add in the images and bibliography.



Here are a few examples that have been shared to the class so far:

1) First up - some students chose to work on slideshow presentations. This students created his Keynote slideshow about the Urinary system. Here it is converted into Quicktime. Love the news intro music :)

2) Next - some students chose the movie / video-ed speech option. Here we have a movie about the Integumentary System made with Windows Live Movie Maker and converted to Quicktime. Other students used iMovie or recorded their show with a digital still camera on the record option.

 3) Many students seemed taken by my interest in 'foldables'  this year and went with either a Science Board, or made their own foldable from large sheets of card I found in the Art Resource Cupboard. This Science Board is about the Immune System:

4) This next student shared her information as a laminated mobile. Earlier in the week, our planning teams had enjoyed the opportunity of visiting another local IB school. I had taken some photos in their y6 classrooms which I had shared with my students and voila! Here we have someone trying a new idea - Risk Taker - yay! It is 5 cards high, double sided with images, and hangs from the ceiling. We laminated it and punched holes in the centre (top and bottom). She then joined them up with ribbon and I pinned it to the ceiling.

5)This group of boys created a website to share their information. You will need to click on the link below the image to be taken to it. I love the principle behind this one because I had taught 1 of the boys 2 years ago in y4. Back then I was a digital classroom teacher so pushing that idea to the max, my 8-9 year olds presented their learning around Natural Disasters using Weebly. Now in y6, the apprentice became the expert, and taught the other 2 the ins-and-outs. All I did here was create the domain for them as its in my teacher account. Click HERE for the link. Navigate through the site by clicking the tabs along the top and scrolling down each page.

I hope that gives you and your students some ideas for your next round of learning presentations. Even though we had moved onto our new inquiry around Energy, they continued with this during their literacy time as it formed part of their visual language. Presenting to the class addressed  Oral language, as well. Some students reflected on what its like being in the audience listening to presentations and started to include quizzes and elements of surprise into theirs (independently), to ensure that the audience was engaged. It was well worth the time as so much learning came out of it, including time management.

Finally, I'll leave you with the following two freebies:

1) This is the audience reflection sheet that the class came up with. Students in pairs filled out one of these after each person presented, as did I. These were then collated and given to the presenter for reflection. Click on the image to get your copy

2) This is the assessment we compiled to check for multi-level understanding of the Central Idea (The human body is made up of complex, interconnected systems).
Know / Remember / Apply. Very revealing indeed. Click on the image to download your copy.

I have compiled all my resource, activities, links, teacher and student sheets for this unit in a  130 pg resource that you can purchase at one of the following venues. Hope you have as much fun as we did. Click on the thumbnail below to access the store.

Happy teaching and report writing to my fellow New Zealand teachers and wishing my international friends a fabulous and well-earned summer break :)