Se7en do Poetry, Packed with Poetry Resources for Kids.

A couple of folk have said to me that they never do the poetry set for school, their kids just don’t get it. And I must say the way we did it as school was pretty tragic: Once a week the teacher put a poem on the board and after reading it through in silence a couple of times we were supposed to have it memorized… wahaaaa – of course the kid I sat beside me always had it down pat and I could never even get the first line. Needless to say, we do poetry a little differently around here, at home.

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We have the stack of poetry books we are using for school very close to our meal table and then at breakfast or lunch we read through the poems of the week for one of the grades we are doing. This leads to endless, endless ideas straight after the meal. A poem gets acted out or a picture gets drawn or painted. I often let them use watercolors to paint their favorite poem of the week and they love that. Or they try their hand at writing poems with the same style themselves. Some of them are brilliant, some are less so! The point is they are not just reading poetry they are doing poetry and enjoying it!

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Se7en Favorites: Everybody has a favorite!

Se7en Poems to Learn Out-loud:

There are some poems that cry out to be learnt by heart. Narrative poems that tell a story are best for those nights when you are just too tired to read a book, or when you are waiting in a queue with no distracting resources. The you have the mad mothering power to tell a story off the top of your head. Here are se7en poems that every mother should know (!!! really you should). Because I know them or bits of them my kids have learnt them: repetition is the key to success here! Also these poems don’t have to be long to impress short people something quick and easy does the trick just as well.

Se7en Classic Poems:

These poems certainly make up a cultural literacy. If you read these often enough you will learn them out-loud or at least recognize them when you come across them. I think it is the wonderful rhythm of these poems that makes them stick in your memory – nothing else would work for me:

Se7en Brilliant Poetry Books for Kids:

There are lots of poetry books that are totally brilliant and we read a lot of them just for fun. Have a look in the poetry section of your library you will be surprised at how many great poetry books there are for kids.

  • This is our current favorite – I love that it comes with a CD and the poems can be played out-loud. It is so much easier to learn and store it in your brain, so to speak, if you have heard it well-read a couple of times:

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  • And who wouldn’t like Poetry Anthologies, these are our best:

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  • And Poetry Collections by favorite authors:

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  • Stories written the entire length in a poetry format – not just picture books, but epic tales like this one: It is the story of a dinosaur that is sent as a gift from the Amazon Jungle to a little English village and the trials of this adventure. Good fun, very funny and very clever!

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  • The last book is a Gooney Bird Greene by Louis Lowry. Gooney Bird Greene books are fabulous all about getting kids to write. This one is her poetry adventure and each chapter has a new poetry technique to learn: haiku’s, couplet’s and so on. Woven through the poetry, so that the “work of poetry” appears almost invisible, is the story of Gooney who is a totally mad kid in a class full of eccentrics with a wonderful teacher that we all wished we had had!

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Se7en Great Links to Poetry Writing Inspiration Websites for Kids:

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It is not enough to just read poetry it is actually fun to write it! Not being a great poet myself I search for ideas around the web: Here are some websites that provide lots and lots of poetry activities to do with kids – great resources. Some are just simple ideas to get them going with ideas and others require a bit more effort on everyone’s part. Here we go, these are the links go and explore:

Finally I have posted some poetry examples from the se7en hoods in the next post… Se7en Make Poetry Notebooks…

I popped this post onto the Works For Me Wednesday Site – go and have a look there for all sorts of tips on absolutely anything.

49 Replies to “Se7en do Poetry, Packed with Poetry Resources for Kids.”

  1. Thank you thank you thank you! I wimped out on poetry this year because I’m a big intimidated chicken! I had already decided to be brave and commit to begin teaching it next year. These resources are perfect!

  2. Hi B, I hope we inspired you a little bit! Some weeks we just manage to read it but mostly it is the most fun part of all our reading. It doesn’t take long but it does make a difference to the fun-factor in all our school, not just language arts.

  3. Hi – me again!! I love poetry but don’t get or know enough of it. Your post is well timed as i have just been leafin through one of the few poetry books we have. Will go and look around for one of the ones you mentioned for kids. What is YOUR favourite poem then?

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