When I taught first and second grade, I always began writers’ workshop with a poetry unit. I found that this was something all my students could do – from those who were just learning to form words, to those who could write page after page. Read on to learn how to teach children to write poetry with a simple color poem.
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When I introduce poetry writing, I explain that poetry is different than story writing. It looks different on a page. It usually has fewer words. Poetry uses words that put special pictures in our minds. And while it sometimes rhymes, it often doesn’t.
Writing poems can be intimidating for kids. Color poems show just how simple and enjoyable poetry writing can be.
Teach children to write poetry with color poems
Yesterday, after picking up my daughter from first grade, I sat at the table with my daughter (age six) and her brother (age five).
1. To begin, we read books about color. We enjoyed And to Name But Just a Few – Red, Yellow, Green and Blue the most. Other fun color books include Red Is a Dragon: A Book of Colors, My Many Colored Days, and The Day the Crayons Quit.
2. After reading, I told the kids that we were each going to write poems about a particular color. I chose the color purple because I didn’t want to use up one of the easy colors! Be sure to model a color your kids aren’t going to choose… otherwise you may end up with two poems remarkably similar ;).
3. I wrote “purple” on top of the page, and together we brainstormed things that are purple. When I did this in the classroom, I always had to encourage kids not to just put things they saw sitting around the room – otherwise the poem might be something like this: “Chair. Scrap of paper. My shoelace. That chart on the wall.” That’s why reading those picture books first is so important.
Together we came up with a short list:
Purple
grapes
plums
violets
new sweater
4. Next, I showed the kids how to add words to the poem to make it more interesting. With the kids’ input, here was our next version of the color poem:
Purple
Crisp wet grapes
Soft, juicy plums
Beautiful violets
Shiny, rubbery balloons
Cozy new sweater
Purple
5. Now it was time to give my kids a try at writing a simple poem. They chose their favorite colors (of course). My Six got to work writing a long list.
Pink
lipstick
sunset
baby’s shirt
paint
marker
pencil
jewel
princess
gum
tongue
tutu
flamingos
ballerinas
ice cream
She found the books extremely helpful as she wrote. They also helped her with spelling if she needed it.
My Five (not yet in kindergarten) also got to work. The immediate challenge for him was accepting that I was not going to give him the spelling for every word. Sounding out words and writing the sounds as you hear them is part of the learning process for young writers. I was relieved that after initially crying about it, he was ready to write.
Yellow
Leman
Benana
Yoke
Daisy
Slid
Sun
With the exception of the word daisy (which he copied from the book), the rest of the spellings were his. I should note that most preschoolers will not be able to spell this well. Both my husband and I do well with writing and spelling, and our older two kids seem to have inherited these abilities. (I won’t get started on the loooong list of undesirable traits I’ve also passed on!)
Depending on the ability level of your child, you may see just one or two letters per word. You might even have your child dictate the poem to you. (Confession: my Three was supposed to be part of this activity as well. He wasn’t willing to dictate to me, however, and with our newborn on my lap and Day Two of Daddy out of town, it wasn’t a battle I was going to fight!)
6. Finally, I worked together with the kids to help them add extra words to make their poems interesting.
My daughter, who wasn’t exactly keyed about doing a writing activity right after school, wanted my help. She is thoroughly capable of doing this herself, but as I said – Day Two of Daddy out of town. Newborn on my lap. Toddler yelling “I done, Mommy!”
(This is what my toddler was doing while the rest of us were working at the table.)
My daughter couldn’t come up with a describing word for every line of her poem. Rather than having me tell her what to write, we dropped some of the words and ended up with this:
Pink
Soft lipstick
Colorful sunset
Inky marker
Hard pencil
Shiny jewel
Beautiful princess
Chewy gum
Wet tongue
Scratchy tutu
Cold ice cream
Understandably, my Five needed a lot more assistance. I gave him prompts like, “How does a lemon taste?” and “How does a slide feel?” This was his poem:
Yellow
Sowr Leman
Benana
Yoke can pop
Daisy
Smoth Slid
the Sun is to Hot
7. I typed the poems up for the kids, and they both loved having a crisp, clear copy.
How can you extend this lesson?
a. Turn it into an art project. Have your child make a color collage and glue the poem on the center. Or your child can do as my Five did — illustrate the poem and glue it to a matching piece of construction paper.
b. Come back to the poem a different day and make it even better.
c. Make an alliterative color poem. To do that, make each line of words start with the same letter. Here’s an example:
Blue
Bouncy balloon
Sparkling sky
Polka-dot pajamas
Blue
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© 2014 – 2016, Anna G. All rights reserved.
Kristina @ School Time Snippets says
Great post, Anna! I love Tip #2 of using an example your child is *not* going to use when it is their turn to write a poem. I always chose something my son would pick thinking it would help him understand better, but then he would have trouble coming up with more descriptive words. You would have thought I’d figure that out! Thanks!!
Anna Geiger says
Yeah – it can be tricky choosing a topic your child WON’T choose that’s still relevant to him. Thanks for reading!
Kathy Balman says
Thanks for the great idea totally pinning this. My kids love colors too.
Anna Geiger says
Thanks for the pin, Kathy!
Tracey M. says
Love this post Anna! I enjoyed teaching about color poems when I taught too! It is such a simple, fun introduction to poetry. I have a feeling my six-year-old daughter will choose the color purple or pink when she works on her color poem. This is a great way for us to review adjectives. I look forward to reading her poem. I told her about the contest and she seemed interested.
Anna Geiger says
That’s great, Tracey – I hope she enters!
Amy @ Wildflower Ramblings says
I love this idea! Even my 3 year old could write a color poem — with help from me!
frances rice says
I really appreciate the thoughtfulness and detail of the lesson idea you shared. I love poetry and have taught poetry appreciation and writing to children all of my teaching career. Currently I am teaching kindergarten and this is a super idea I can use! We will start with some group collaborative poems, and hopefully move on to some individual poems. I’d love to have my students enter your contest!
Anna Geiger says
We’d love to have them enter, Frances!
Carla says
Anna, I *love* this! I used your method here with my kids (and my daycare kids…3 – 7 years old!), and they all finished with wonderful poems! Thank you so much for sharing!!
jeannine: waddleeahchaa says
I like how you go into detail of how to read, brainstorm, then elaborate with more words. Great lesson!
(Unfortunately, I passed on the family curse . . . let’s just say my entire family, for generations, has not been blessed with the good speller gene.)
Anna Geiger says
Bummer about the spelling gene ;). My dad is an amazing speller, and my mom – while a great writer – is the opposite. Thankfully I got the spelling gene — however, mom mom’s amazing artistic abilities soared right over me!
Megan says
Love the poems they wrote! Great activity!
Anna Geiger says
Thank you, Megan!
Natalie PlanetSmartyPants says
This is terrific! We should definitely try a color poem here! Thanks for being a poetry celebration co-host!
Julie says
Thanks for this great idea. We wrote color poems today during our poetry tea time and it was a huge success. Here’s one of the poems my 12 year old daughter wrote:
Green
Gynormous green grapes,
Moss-colored jade,
Sometimes even a window shade
Cucumbers, basil, broccoli,
emeralds and peridot
Mallard duck heads, canaries and a parrot
Slippery, slimy, seaweed,
hurting, stinging nettle,
cactus, mold and mildew and old copper metal.
Anna Geiger says
Fabulous, Julie! Wow, she’s got some great vocabulary. I hope you enter this in the contest – I think you have a day or two left 🙂
Rachel Miller (@Tepary) says
Love the idea of a poetry tea time. My new 2nd grader is a struggling reader, but she loves poetry and after a really positive experience at school where she got to read her poem over the intercom poetry writing is something she’ll actually do. I love this detailed explanation Anna. Thank you. And Julie, I’m intrigued by poetry tea time. Would love to know more.
Muniba Ali says
You are a genius!
Anna Geiger says
🙂 I hope you get a chance to try this lesson!
Rizwana says
Hello
Came across this post today and want to say thankyou for such a great idea .
We tried this today and this is what my 5 (.will turn 5 at the end of Nov . ) year old came up with .
Yellow
Tasty soft banana
Yummy healthy sweetcorn
Hot enormous sun
Squishy quacky bath duck
Sticky messy paint
Yellow
Anna G says
Wow, SO well done! Your little one did a fantastic job – thanks so much for sharing that! 🙂
Melanie de Monet says
Love your ideas. I use Hailstones and Halibut Bones for the color poems.
Anna G says
I love that book! I remember using it when I taught in the classroom.