Beginning in 1996, April has been declared National Poetry Month in the US. This tradition was started by the Academy of American Poets to celebrate poets and the wonderful things that poetry can bring to our lives.
There are plenty of ways for kids to celebrate National Poetry Month. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
April 1st is one of my favorite days of the year. Why? Because it’s April Fool’s Day!
April Fool’s Day is a time to get creative and play fun pranks on friends, teachers, siblings and parents. There’s also the anticipation of the prank’s success, and the thrill of wondering if someone is going to play a prank on you. The most important thing to remember about this silly holiday is to keep a good attitude. Sportsmanship is key. Make sure your pranks are not designed to hurt anyone physically or emotionally. Also, don’t get angry if someone puts a whoopee cushion on your seat. It’s funny… so laugh along.
In the following poem, kids play all kinds of April Fool’s Day pranks on their teacher… only to discover that their shenanigans land them in a not-so-funny situation!
Words are everywhere. They are on our toothpaste tube when we rub the sand out of our eyes and brush the scum off our teeth in the wee hours of the morning. Words are on our cereal box, our t-shirt, and the signs that mark our neighborhood streets. Words are even in our heads, as we internally tag each object around us with its corresponding name.
So if words are all over the place, why is it that we can often sit down to attempt writing- a poem or a story or an essay- and we can’t find the words? Well, it’s not that the words aren’t there. It’s just that for whatever reason… maybe we had a bad day, or we’re distracted by that upcoming test, or we’re excited about a birthday party… sometimes we aren’t feeling inspired.
March 21st is World Poetry Day, so don’t miss out on your chance to celebrate all things poetic with the rest of the planet!
In 1999, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation – or UNESCO for short – decided to establish an event that would recognize the impact poetry has had on the arts and cultural life throughout human history, and so, in 2000, the first World Poetry Day took place!
It’s a time to support poets, who often work very hard with very little recognition, but is also a time to appreciate poetry from around the world.
St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, a country known for shamrocks, leprechauns and lucky charms. People celebrate St Patrick’s Day on 17th March, by wearing green clothes, and pinning a shamrock to their outfit. A shamrock is the Irish name for clover, and it’s always been considered lucky to find one with four leaves instead of the usual three!
This year, I’m going to show you how to make your own lucky shamrock charm to wear on St Patrick’s Day, or to give to someone you love!
The word ‘charm’ comes from the French ‘charme’, which means song. Here is an ancient charm poem from Ireland that explains why a four-leaved shamrock is so lucky:
One leaf is for fame,
And one leaf is for wealth,
And one is for a faithful love,
And one to bring you glorious health.
Looking for ways to have fun with poetry besides just reading it? Here are poetic activities that you can use at home or in the classroom to celebrate holidays, have parties, make crafts, and more.
Hands-on projects help bring poetry to life for young children. In the poem “The Armpit of Doom,” the speaker is experiencing the horrible sights and smells of her brother’s disgusting, stinky bedroom. Have you ever smelled something so bad that it literally makes you want to vomit? All you want to do is smell something good to erase that odor from your mind! In this project, we’ll create homemade air fresheners that you can keep for your own self-defense, or give to that stinky-room person in your life as a special gift from you to them. They may not appreciate it… but everyone else will!
Often when they’re asked to write a poem, children can get stuck at the first hurdle: What to write about. By using a familiar starting point, you can kick-start your class’s creativity by giving an easy way in—and a great place to begin is with the fairy tales they’ve grown up with!
Many fairy tales are even older than the printing press. Originally, they were passed on from person to person and generation to generation only orally. (Once books became commonplace, people such as the Brothers Grimm were able to collect the stories from people and commit them to paper.) A great way for people to remember stories in those days was to turn them into rhyming poems or songs—often called ballads—so they could pass them on from one person to the next. This meant that each person could also change the story when they told it, to keep it interesting and relevant (or if they had forgotten a bit!).
Once the stories were written down, they weren’t as easy to change, because the printed word was there for everyone to see. This activity is all about creating a rhyming version of a well-known fairy tale story, and memorizing it at the same time.
There’s nothing so exciting as a secret! That’s why private messages written on folded paper, passed to friends who you know will keep your secret, are so thrilling… There’s a chance the note might get intercepted, and the information will get leaked!
The following poem is about a poem that nobody is supposed to read. It’s a secret, but not a very good one, because everyone keeps reading it, even when the author asks them to stop!
Kids love to get up and get moving, which is great because movement can help reinforce learning. Most children also love games. Put movement and games together, and you have a high energy activity that can be done quietly in any classroom: Charades!
The following game of charades uses the twenty-seven activities found in the poem “I Don’t Know What to Do Today.” It’s simple to prepare, exciting, and teaches children that poetry is fun while helping them reinforce important skills like memorization, cooperation, and word association.
