6 Simple Ways to Celebrate Poetry Month in Your Homeschool

April is National Poetry Month and the writer in me is ready to celebrate! The homeschool mama in me is also celebrating, because April is also the month when we are a little bit restless and looking for something to shake off those almost-end-of-the-year doldrums. Thank you, poetry, for coming along and painting our tired, old curricula with pretty words and sparking a new flame under our imaginations!

If you’d like to celebrate poetry month in your homeschool or co-op, here are some simple ideas to get you started. Happy writing!

Create a Poetry Board

Create a poetry board! This is fun for a group of students. In our homeschool co-op, we created two push-pin poetry boards where the kids gather between activities to string together words to create verses. We printed and cut out our group of words from here. Cut them out and spread them on the table under a cork board. For the younger group, we wrapped a piece of foam poster board in wrapping paper. Then we filled cups with push pins and let them get to work on pinning their poetry.

Write Paint Chip Poetry

Pick up some paint chips from your local home improvement store. You want the kind that has several strips with a color name printed on each. The challenge here is to write a poem where each line takes up a strip and incorporates the color’s name into the verse.

How to write paint chip poetry.

Keep a Poetry Journal

If you’re already journaling in your homeschool, have your students add a poem or verse to each days entry. Or, start a separate journal just for 30 days of poetry writing.

Explore Famous Poets

Choose four poets to explore during the month of April. Each week , pick one of those poets to study. Ideas for exploring a poet include reading that poet’s works, researching his or her biography, using verses for copywork, discussing the poet’s style and writing a poem of your own in the same style.

Learn how to Write Different Types of Poems

Have you ever heard of a cinquain poem? How about a Haiku, a sonnet or an acrostic poem? There are many types of poems you can explore in your homeschool. In my homeschool, this has become a favorite activity for the kids that yields treasured keepsakes for Mom.

Have an A to Z Poetry Challenge

Choose 26 days in the month of April and use each one to write a poem about a topic that starts  with each letter of the alphabet. Read them aloud in the evening to discover what each family member came up with.