Introducing and exploring poetry

The activities in the resource will help you introduce poetry to P4-7 pupils.

The resource explores poems by Michael Rosen, Joseph Coelho, Joshua Seigal and James Carter and is divided into four areas: quick activities to introduce poetry; performing poetry; creating a poetry friendly classroom; and poetry toolkit.

At the bottom of this page you will find a video of Joseph Coelho reading the poem May from his collection A Year of Nature Poems. You could use many of the activities in this resource with this poem and video.

Introduce poetry

• Dicussion points: what is poetry? (estimated time: 20-30mins)
• Watch a poet perform their work (estimated time: 10-15mins)
• Compare and contrast poems (estimated time: 15-20mins)
• Introducing rhythm and sound games (estimated time: 10-15mins)

Performing poetry

• Planning a performance (estimated time: 2-3hours spread over multiple days)
• Performing poetry- other resources (estimated time: 1-2 hours)

Creating a poetry friendly space

• Poem of the week (estimated time: 10-15mins per week)
• Daily poem (estimated time: 5mins per day)
• Jigsaw poems (estimated time: 15-20mins)
• Quick on the draw (estimated time: 10mins)
• Poetry slide show (estimated time: 20-30mins)
• Making music (estimated time: 45mins- 1 hour)
• Poetry envoys (estimated time: 20-25mins)

Poetry toolkit for writing

• Word association game (estimated time: 5-10mins)
• M.O.R.E.R.A.P.S (estimated time: 30mins)
• Senses (estimated time: 15-20mins)
• Class poem (estimated time: 30mins- 1 hour)