Presidents Day is celebrated on the 3rd Monday of the month every February in the USA. It marks the birthday of the first American President George Washington (which was actually on February 22nd, but we like to have our holidays on a Monday!)
In fact, that’s Great Idea Number One:
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.
When people hear the word ‘ballad’ today they often think of mushy love songs, but ballads have a much greater history. While most poetry is concerned with evoking emotions and feelings, the ballad is a vehicle for story-telling, and has been with us since medieval times.
The words are set to music to become a song, and follow a simple rhyming pattern and a set meter (or rhythm).
Each verse has four lines, and the poem can have as many verses as necessary to tell the story. Some famous examples are ‘Beowulf’, ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’ and ‘The House of The Rising Sun.’*
Because a ballad can tell any story, they are a great way of fitting creative writing tasks into your curriculum. Here are some exercises you can use to explore the form:
The best poems draw in their audience, and spark the imagination. If you want to conjure up a complete world for the reader when writing about a particular place or time, you can call upon each of the five senses to create the correct atmosphere.
This short lesson will give you an example of how you can use this technique in your own poetry!
Valentine’s Day is a perfect opportunity to tell the people we care about how much they mean to us. The tradition of sharing our feelings by giving cards dates back to the 15th Century in Europe, and the messages were all originally written as poems!
The oldest surviving example of a Valentine’s poem is written in French, but the most famous Valentine’s poem of all is in English:
Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
Sugar is sweet,
And so are you!
The best thing about this poem is that it is so simple to adapt by changing just a few words.
Some people buy pre-printed cards, but homemade cards always mean a bit more, especially when you’ve written your own personalized poetry inside!
A poem can do a lot of things. It can tell a funny story, describe an interesting image, or present an idea. Some poems are written in the form of a “direct address”—that is, the speaker in the poem is talking directly to a specific person. An apology poem is one that uses direct address as a way to apologize for something that the speaker has done or said.
One of the most famous examples of an apology poem is by William Carlos Williams. The title of this poem is “This Is Just to Say.” As you read the poem, decide for yourself whether the speaker is actually sorry for what he has done.
If you’ve ever had “writer’s block,” you know how awful it feels when you just can’t seem to get started on a piece of writing. Sometimes it helps to warm up your writing muscles, similar to the way that an athlete would stretch before a game or a musician would tune an instrument. For a writer, one of the best ways to warm up is to do five minutes of freewriting. Using a writing prompt to get you started, write as quickly as you can without stopping for five minutes. You can always edit what you wrote later, but you’ll capture some great ideas when you’re writing as fast as you can.
Here are 20 ideas for fun writing prompts that you can use if you’re feeling stuck—or if you’re just looking for interesting ideas for a new story or poem. There’s no wrong way to respond to any of these prompts, and you can let your imagination go wild. You’ll know you’re getting “warm” when you’re really having fun!
Getting young children excited about poetry is as simple as emptying your recycling bin! Here’s a creative craft idea inspired by the poem “My Robot’s Misbehaving” that will capture the attention of boys and girls alike.
First, read the poem aloud to the kids. You could also hand out a copy of the poem for them to read silently.
My Robot’s Misbehaving
My robot’s misbehaving.
It won’t do as I say.
It will not dust the furniture
or put my toys away.My robot never helps me
with homework or my chores.
It doesn’t do my laundry
and neglects to clean my floors.It claims it can’t cook dinner.
It never makes my bed.
No matter what I ask of it,
it simply shakes its head.My robot must be broken.
I’ll need to get another.
Until that day, I have to say,
I’m glad I have my mother.–Kenn Nesbitt
Then, ask them if they’d like to build their very own robot with interchangeable magnetic parts, kind of a like a Mr. Robot Head! When they’re done squealing with excitement, take them to the table where you have all the supplies ready.
January 25th is a day of celebration in Scotland. That’s because it’s Robbie Burns Day, the birthday of Scottish poet Robert Burns. In fact, this holiday is celebrated in many different places in the world—even in Vancouver, Canada!
In some places, Robbie Burns Day is known as Burns Night. This day is celebrated in many ways, ranging from bagpipe music to recitals of Burns’ poetry. In Scotland, this event is often represented by a formal party called a “Burns Supper,” which features the reading of a Burns poem called “Address to a Haggis.” Haggis is a Scottish meal that is made from a special recipe using the internal organs of sheep along with oatmeal, onions, and spices.
Robert Burns lived in the 18th century in Ayrshire, a rural area in Scotland. Burns is sometimes called the “ploughman poet” because he spent much of his life as a farmer. However, he was well educated, having studied Latin and French as well as the works of many important writers, such as William Shakespeare. He was introduced to many Scottish legends and folk songs by his mother.
Tanka, which means “short song,” has been an important literary form in Japanese culture for nearly a thousand years. The original Japanese form of tanka had only one line of poetry containing 31 speech sounds—what we would call syllables. However, most tanka poems that are written in English today are broken into five poetic lines with a certain number of syllables in each line.
The basic structure of a tanka poem is 5 – 7 – 5 – 7 – 7. In other words, there are 5 syllables in line 1, 7 syllables in line 2, 5 syllables in line 3, and 7 syllables in lines 4 and 5. If you have ever written a haiku, you will notice that tanka is kind of like a longer version of haiku that gives you a little more room to tell a story. Here is one example of a tanka poem:
