Sunday, April 10, 2011

National Poetry Month: Poetry Pictures



I love that National Poetry Month comes in April. This year I've been determined to explore poetry more with my kids during this month of celebration. I got out a stack of poetry books last week (above). This is by no means all my poetry books, but some of the books are just not kid-appropriate, and some I couldn't find. I try to keep all my poetry books on one shelf, but that doesn't always work…

I was inspired by this post at Making Books Blog to make that type of poetry collage, but kids do have minds of their own. We started with a basic theme of "spring" and started plowing through poetry books. We all read aloud whatever poems appealed to us, and then we picked a poem each to make into a picture.

Laurel chose this Shel Silverstein poem, "The Oak and the Rose."

I chose "Violets" by Valerie Worth. It was Laurel's idea to add real violets.

Duncan chose "The Man in the Onion Bed" by John Ciardi. He added a special scratch-and-sniff feature with wild onions from the yard.

If you'd like to try some creative writing with your kids and don't know where to start, take a look at my WordSmithery. I recommend starting from the beginning, but here is a fun activity for spring flowers poetry.

3 comments:

  1. I love your pictures and ideas and I linked you to my poetry post at Practical Pages. Thanks for the inspiration!

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  2. This post has inspired me for our next school year. I'm thinking about taking your picture ideas and having my kids "scrapbook" our poem studies throughout the year. What a nice little journal to keep for when they are older and can't remember as well (like me). Thanks for the great post!

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  3. You've inspired me to pick up a few poetry books the next trip to the library. We haven't done much more than nursery rhymes and maybe it will inspire my kids to use some in their writing.

    And my daughter will love the idea of 'beautifying' a poem with art.

    Thanks!

    Misty

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