Today’s blog is aimed at teachers of primary and secondary students; it offers ways in which you might like to use this blog site or otherwise employ poetry in your classroom.

• Research and find poems from poets listed in the A to Z of Australian children’s poetry and then give a class presentation
• Check out at least one of the poetry website links on the blog site and tell the class what they found
• Enter poems they have written into children’s competitions listed on the site
• Write an email – or a letter – to one of the poets listed on the blog site
• Write a poem and submit it to the site as the Poem of the Day
• Invite a poet – or a community leader – to visit your school to read and/or recite poems at your school assembly.
• Ask every child in your class to find a poem they love and create a class poetry anthology
• Organise a poetry read based on poems collected for the anthology
• Write a class acrostic poem using the teacher’s surname
• Talk about free verse and read a verse novel to your class
• Make a collection of poems displayed on the site (from the A to Z of poets) and from the Poem of the Day
• Display a Poem of the Day written by a student on the class noticeboard
• Find and share silly, short poems written by Anonymous
• For a class assembly item, have the class present poetry connected by a theme (for example: family, food, games)
• For a fun activity in class, have students talk to one another in rhyming couplets for a limited period
• Raid home, public and school libraries for poetry collections and anthologies; when it’s time for DEAR, have students read from one of the books
• After DEAR, each child share a poem they really liked
• Memorise and recite poems found on the Australian children’s poetry blog site
• Have class work together to write an article about poetry in their class and submit it to the blog site
• Have students find children’s poetry websites and blogs not listed on the blog site and submit them as links

   

Feel free to send in information about how you employ poetry in your classroom if you’re a teacher. Or if you are a student, send in your thoughts, too! Send to dibates@outlook.com