Poems Background Information for Teachers, Parents and Caregivers
This page provides information to support educators and families in teaching K-3 students about poems. It is designed to complement the Poems topic page on BrainPOP Jr.
Poetry is a great way for children to experiment and explore language and develop phonemic awareness. Most children are familiar with nursery rhymes and tongue twisters, but acrostic poems, shape poems, rebus poems, and haikus are all fantastic ways to inspire your children and get them reading and writing.
Remind your children that they can get ideas for poems everywhere, and that poems can often grow from a strong feeling or thought. They might get inspired by watching a movie, reading a book, or looking at a piece of art. They may want to look through old diaries and journals or photographs to see what entries or images grab them. You might ask children to think of an object that is meaningful to them to write about. Brainstorming can help children gather ideas for poems and we recommend using different graphic organizers to help record their thoughts. Remind your children that there are many kinds of poems and they all communicate a thought or idea. Throughout your poetry study, it is important to give your children many opportunities to listen to, read, and respond to as many poems as possible.
Extension Activities:
Remind your children that they can get ideas for poems everywhere, and that poems can often grow from a strong feeling or thought. They might get inspired by watching a movie, reading a book, or looking at a piece of art. They may want to look through old diaries and journals or photographs to see what entries or images grab them. You might ask children to think of an object that is meaningful to them to write about. Brainstorming can help children gather ideas for poems and we recommend using different graphic organizers to help record their thoughts. Remind your children that there are many kinds of poems and they all communicate a thought or idea. Throughout your poetry study, it is important to give your children many opportunities to listen to, read, and respond to as many poems as possible.
To write an acrostic poem, your children should first pick a subject, or topic. Then they can pick a word associated with the subject and write a line of poetry that begins with each letter of the word. Encourage your children to be creative. Even if they are writing about a big or complicated subject, explain that they should focus on a small detail. They may want to focus on the way something looks, smells, tastes, sounds, or feels. Remind them to use the senses when they write a poem. They can use sensory detail charts to help them organize their ideas. Writing with the senses helps communicate their message to the reader. Furthermore, using literary devices such as similes can help strengthen their poems. We recommend watching the BrainPOP Jr. movies on Writing with the Senses and Similes to review.
A shape poem is a poem that is written to fit inside a shape. When there is only a little room inside the shape, only a few words might fit. When there is more space, however, longer lines can fit. They can also write a poem in the outline of a shape. Remind your children that poems do not have to rhyme. Compare poems that rhyme with those that do not. How are they alike and different? You can also rewrite a rhyming poem so that it does not rhyme. How does it change? Help your children understand that language is powerful and malleable.
A rebus poem is a poem that uses symbols to stand for words. For example, a picture of an eye stands for the word “I”, a heart stands for the word “love,” and the letter u stands for the word “you.” Display different rebuses to your children and have them decipher their meaning. Then challenge them to come up with their own rebuses. If children have a problem deciphering a rebus, encourage them to describe the picture out loud.
A haiku is a kind of poetry that originated in Japan. A haiku has three lines. The first line has five syllables, the second line has seven syllables, and the last line has five syllables. Remind your children that a syllable is a unit of sound in a word. Practice counting the syllables in different words. Challenge your students to come up with words that have many syllables. You may want to clap out the syllables together and count out loud. Help children see that a syllable in a word always contains one vowel.
There are many different kinds of poetry, but they all serve the same purpose: To use language to communicate a thought or an idea. Just as a carpenter uses a hammer and nail to create and build something, a writer uses words and language to help him or her create a piece of writing. Encourage your children to explore language and provide a nurturing, creative environment where they can be free to experiment. Encourage your children to carry notebooks with them to write down their thoughts and ideas throughout the day. Writing poetry is a great way to challenge children and help them understand the power of language.