Teaching Poetry to Homeschoolers
Fun Ways to Learn About Poetic Devices
Children in grades K-8 can learn about poetic elements from a variety of entertaining and kid friendly sources.
Just the mention of the word poetry can make some students start to fidget. If you're looking for a way to teach poetic elements such as rhyme, meter and alliteration, fear not. There are lots of kid friendly poems out there that provide a good starting place for teaching the basics.
Humorous Poems
Kids love humor. In fact, humorous poems will probably appeal to their teacher, too. Where do you start? Check out your public library. Books of poetry written by Jack Prelutsky, Shel Silverstein, Ogden Nash, and others will have your homeschoolers giggling and learning in no time.
Song Lyrics
Music and poetry are a great combination. And since song lyrics are really just poems with a melody, all the poetic elements can be found there. A search at Yahoo Music should lead you to printable lyrics that you can share and discuss with your kids.
Nursery Rhymes
Revisit some favorite nursery rhymes with your kids. This time, examine them more closely. Many are filled to the brim with poetic devices that most of us never even notice.
Haiku
Not all poetry has to rhyme. Haiku is one type that doesn't. It's short (either 17 or 21 syllables) and to the point. Traditionally Haiku poems are written about something in nature.
Find a book of Haiku poems, or a few individual poems online for your students to examine. Then have them try to write a haiku poem of their own. Start by helping them choose a topic. (For instance rain, wind, flowers, an animal, etc.) Next, have them brainstorm a list of words or short phrases about that topic.
Once they have chosen their favorites from the list, have them count syllables and arrange their poem in the following simple pattern.
Title
1st line = 5 syllables
2nd line = 7 syllables
3rd line = 5 syllables
If your child is having too much fun to leave your poetry unit behind, you might want to check out various teacher sites for other ideas or fun books of poetry you can purchase at a reasonable cost. Scholastic Books and Dover Teacher's Sampler are two places to check.
As a final activity, children may be interested in making their own book of favorite poems they have "met." Creating a personal collection can be a great way to end the unit., and it's a wonderful place for the homeschooling parent to showcase a piece or two of their young author's original work.
