30 Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month in the Classroom
- Decorate your classroom with the National Poetry Month poster.
- Invite your students to write letters to award-winning poets as part of this year’s Dear Poet project.
- Learn more about the educator resources on Poets.org with this brief video guide featuring Richard Blanco.
- Begin each day or class period with a new poem.
- Talk to your school librarian about creating a poetry book display in the library.
- Read a poem over the public address system each morning.
- Send your students on a scavenger hunt for favorite poems in the Poems for Kids section of Poets.org.
- Organize a field trip to a local nursing home and have students read poems to the elderly.
- Ask each student to create his or her anthology of favorite poems.
- Show your students these poets’ definitions of the word poetry and ask them to provide their own.
- Hold a poetry exchange day with poems wrapped as gifts.
- Explore A Poet’s Glossary and introduce your students to a different poetic term every day.
- Sign up for Teach This Poem to receive a weekly poem, classroom activities, and multimedia resources.
- Have your students make and send greeting cards featuring lines of poetry.
- Browse these poems about reading and writing and these lesson plans about ars poetica poems.
- Read Edward Hirsch’s essay “How to Read a Poem.”
- Have your class choose poems and write them in chalk on the sidewalk.
- Invite your students to read about ekphrastic poetry and write poems in response to their favorite pieces of art.
- Hold a poetry festival in your school and invite students to read or memorize their favorite poems.
- Play audio recordings of poets reading their work at the beginning of every class.
- Publish a school-wide literary journal or anthology of student poems.
- Help your students find local events and opportunities through Poetry Near You.
- Celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day and download this packet of poems for the occasion.
- Talk about immigration and heritage in the classroom with these selections of poems and lesson plans.
- Browse this selection of poems about spring.
- Have your students illustrate poems and hang them around the classroom or school.
- Host a poetry café for the parents and invite your students to read poems aloud.
- Play videos of poets reading and discussing their work.
- Challenge students to create a poetry notebook and write one poem per day in April.
- Download the Poetry in the Classroom Calendar and plan ahead for more opportunities to bring poetry into the classroom.