Poem of the Week

• Highlight letters you know.
• Draw lines under words that start with /d/, or /s/, etc.
• Circle words that rhyme. *Find word wall words.
• Count the words in each line.
• How many words in the whole rhyme?
• Find the word with the most letters.
• When you read stand up for capitol letters and sit down for periods. (You can also hop for commas.)
• Choose a “magic” word (skill word you are working on) and clap each time you come to it in the rhyme.
• Look up words you don’t understand in a dictionary.
• Leave out a word and let the children fill it in.
• Say the rhyme wrong and let the children correct you.
• Cut apart the words in the rhyme and then put them back together like a puzzle. (Use sentence strips and a pocket chart for this project.)
• Use poems for fluency activities. For example, you can read with different emotions, read like a mouse, a turtle, a dinosaur, etc.
• Use poems for “exercise breaks” by jumping to the beat. You can also patty cake, hop, walk, touch your toes, skip, and make other motions to the beat of the rhyme.
• What is the setting of the poem? Who are the characters? What is the problem? Resolution? What will happen next?
• Dramatize the rhyme.
• Illustrate the rhyme.
• Make a sack puppet or make something from play dough that relates to the rhyme.

Visit readwritethink.org for more creative ways to use poetry in your classroom.

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