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Hello! I am Jill from Coffman’s Creative Classroom. First of all, I want to thank Heather for the opportunity to share my ideas with you. I am excited to share what we do in our classroom to create an interactive and engaging poetry unit. April is the perfect time to teach about poetry because it is National Poetry Month. We are getting close to the end of the school year and we are all getting a little restless. Poetry is a nice change of pace for both you and your students. Poetry can be so much fun when used in an interactive way. 

Getting students to start thinking about what poetry is and starting to use poetry vocabulary is your first step.  Start with creating an anchor chart to build on background knowledge of poetry. Simply start with the question “What is Poetry?”. Using posters at the top of your anchor charts can save you tons of time and visually help students see what you are explaining. 

Your goal is to make learning about poetry hands-on and engaging. Here are five simple interactive ideas that your students are sure to love. Who doesn’t love having their very own notebook? Start with printing labels for their notebooks. This will give them a sense of pride having their own notebook to keep all of their poetry in one place. If you want to use folders, you can go that route as well. Just put some paper into each folder and you are set! They can build on these even after the poetry unit is complete. 

Here are some ideas to create an amazing interactive poetry unit for your students: 

1. Poem Pockets

First of all, let me tell you, your students will absolutely love these! They can glue them into their notebooks and place all of their vocabulary and poems into it. I have had to make our pockets bigger and add an extra pocket because we simply needed more room for poetry. After you introduce a type of poem they are able to practice and place their poem in their pocket. 

2. Poetry Foldables

Who doesn’t love an interactive flip book? You can use these the old fashion way and fold paper and have students write on them, or you can have already prepared foldables they can glue right into their notebooks. It is nice to have all of the information in one place. They can write the definitions under each flap or you may wish to have your students write an example. You can do the same type of foldable when you are working on the elements of poetry. 

3. Circle Poetry

4. Poetry Bins and Reference Books

It is important to have poetry bins for easy access. You can have students pick their favorite poem and copy it in their notebooks or on a poem pocket paper. If you have not built up your classroom library you can go to the public library and fill a couple bins with poetry books. You are going to love having these readily available for example and student access. Having poetry reference books will help your students have easy access to what they have learned at their finger tips.

5. Poetry Cafe Night

This is such a memorable night for both parents and students. Students write invitations to their parents to come hear their poetry. You are working on poems throughout the entire unit and now is the time to highlight your student’s best work. You can roll out the red bulletin board paper as a red carpet, have a special place where they speak, a tasty treat, and you are all set!  

There are so many fun and interactive ways to incorporate poetry into your classroom. I hope you found ideas to help guide your unit. If you are looking for more ideas you are more than welcome to check out my poetry unit. Thanks so much and you are going to have an awesome poetry unit, I just know it!