Poetry Activities for Primary Students: Reading, Writing & Math Connections

If you were to be a fly on the wall in my classroom you would notice our literacy centers are engaging and fun. 
In our school board, kindergarten is a play based. 
As a result, I like to incorporate play in our literacy block by tying in our shared reading poem into the various provocations that are available for the children to choose. 
These are some of the various ways I incorporate play and literacy!

Roll a Word

Roll a word is a fun interactive way which targets multiple curriculum expectations.

Building number fluency, learning numbers, subitizing, graphing, reading and writing.

Roll A Word Variations

Play until you have rolled each number.

Count how many rolls it took!

Which word will have five first? Or a lesser number as an adaptation for young learners.

Which word will be filled to the top first?

Fill the chart! *This, strangely enough, is the class favorite!*

Word Towers

Making a word tower out of the sight words we use is another fun way to incorporate writing!

It is differentiated in that I provide multiple cups with the sight words from the poem which allows the children to build different heights and complexities of tower building.

Each cup has a word and the associated image on it which is really important for the non-readers in my classroom. This supports their learning by providing meaning to what they write. Even when they cannot “read” their friends think they can and they feel very proud!

Some children even will draw the images of the clip art beside the word, just like is on the cup!

Bean Bag Toss

It is amazing to see the pure pleasure that a simple game of bean bag toss will bring to a class!

Provide a safe location to throw in a classroom and kinesthetic learning will flourish.

There are many skills needed to play:

* developing organizational skills as I let them set up the game as you can see in the image above

* gross motor skills by aiming and trying to land the bean bag onto a word

* fine motor skills as they write the associated word down to track which words they have landed on

* interpersonal and social skills as they negotiate turn taking and sharing the bean bags

Tip: If you play a game like this, laminated and reuse the pages to repurpose by putting them in sheet protectors and switch them out each week as our poem changes.

Write the Room

I always like to incorporate a write the room activity as a writing provocation. 
I hide the words or I allow my students. I strongly believe that  every word should have an image beside it for our non-readers to support their learning. 
Kids love to find things and feel very proud when they are successful at it! Finding words is just as exciting. Usually when we are putting away this activity I’ll have to ask the class for an “expert” in the class to find a missing word. They love this ownership and responsibility!

Interested in some original poetry that include fun activities?

The poem used in this example is actually a freebie in my TpT store! It doesn’t include all of the activities I use but will give you a ‘snapshot’ into what it feels like and it is a sampling of the bigger products below. 
In these there are differentiated visual prompts. This supports my ELL students, young readers and higher reading students. 
Included with each poem:
3 poems – plain, fill in the blank and lots of visual supports
Read, trace, write and draw activities
Word hunt
Cup tower building
Write the room
Word wall words
Roll a word graphing
Bean bag toss

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