30 Ideas (One for Every Day!) for Celebrating Poetry Month in Your Homeschool
It’s National Poetry Month, so let’s celebrate with a roundup of 30 ways to explore poetry in your secular homeschool.
Celebrate National Poetry Month this April with an inspiring activity for every day.
DAY 1: LAUGH IT UP
The National Poetry Foundation’s satiric send-up of what a world with plenty of everyday poetry might look like (Rachel Maddow hosts the MSNBC special “Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare’s Plays” and ESPN2’s best memorizer competition hits the big time) is hilarious.
DAY 2: LISTEN UP
Log on to the Poetry Everywhere channel, where poets like Galway Kinnell and Adrienne Rich read their favorite and original poems.
DAY 3: FIND YOUR OWN WORDS
Use classic poems or speeches as inspiration for your own poetic work with the Word Mover tool. For kids who have trouble getting those first words down on paper, this is a great place to start; for kids who love putting words on paper, it’s a great way to play with classic texts.
DAY 4: FIND A NEW FAVORITE POEM
A few we love: “Macavity the Mystery Cat” (T.S. Eliot), “April Rain Song” (Langston Hughes), “Sick” (Shel Silverstein), “About the Teeth of Sharks” (John Ciardi), “Rabbit” (Mary Ann Hoberman), “The Adventures of Isabel” (Ogden Nash), “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening” (Robert Frost), “What Is Pink?” (Christina Rossetti)
DAY 5: ORGANIZE AN EXHIBITION
Put together a homeschool Poetry Out Loud competition in your town. Whether you decide to choose a winner or not, this recitation exhibition brings poetry to vivid life.
DAY 6: BE INSPIRED
Listen to three teens from the Santa Fe Indian School practice their recitations for the National Youth Poetry Slam Festival in Washington D.C.
DAY 7: MAKE A BLACKOUT POEM
All you need is a newspaper and a Sharpie to make poetry. Scribble out words and sentences on a newspaper page, leaving uncovered carefully chosen words to make a poem. (Tip: Arts pages often have better words to choose from than a newspaper’s front page.)
DAY 8: HAVE A POETRY TEA
Make a Tuesday date around the table to share your favorite poems over a traditional afternoon tea.
DAY 9: SAY HI TO HAIKU
Read classic haiku and master the skills you need to write your own seventeen-syllable poems (in lines of five, seven, five) with this worskshop from the University of Colorado at Boulder's Center for Asian Studies.
DAY 10: GET NERDY WITH IT
Write a Fib, a six-line poem that uses the Fibonacci sequence to dictate the number of syllables in each line.
DAY 11: GO EPIC
What makes a poem epic? Dig into the details of the history and characteristics of this distinctive poetic form.
DAY 12: STAGE A RECITATION
Memorize a poem and perform it for an audience, just like the “Friday concerts” in one-room schoolhouses.
DAY 13: START A COMMONPLACE BOOK
Make your own perfect-for-you poetry collection by copying your favorite poems into a notebook.
DAY 14: PLAN A BIRTHDAY PARTY FOR A POET
There are lots to choose from in April: Maya Angelou was born on April 4, William Wordsworth on the 7th, Charles-Pierre Baudelaire on the 10th, Seamus Heaney on the 13th, Shakespeare on the 23rd, Robert Penn Warren on the 24th, and John Crowe Ransom on the 30th.
DAY 15: TANKA YOU
When is a syllable not a syllable? When it’s an on, a Japanese sound unit used to set the strict metric tone for the Japanese tanka.
DAY 16: Make Poetry move
Students of all ages can be inspired by creating choreography for their favorite poems: Think of it as an interpretive dance that moves with words instead of music.
DAY 17: MAKE A CONNECTION
The Academy of American Poets invites students to write their own poetry in response to poems written by Academy members — what a great reminder that poetry is an ongoing conversation, not just a monologue.
DAY 18: NOMINATE A POET FOR A STAMP
You can nominate any American poet who has been dead for at least ten years to be featured on a U.S. stamp. Send suggestions to: Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee, c/o Stamp Development, U.S. Postal Service. 475 L’Enfant Plaza, SW, Room 5670, Washington, D.C. 20260-2437
DAY 19: LAUGH AT LIMERICKS
Make poetic sense of nonsense with an in-depth look at Edward Lear’s work and the limerick’s form and function.
DAY 20: READ ALOUD
Former poet laureate Billy Collins gives his best poetry reading tips — and suggestions for 180 poems to practice with — on the Poetry 180 website.
DAY 21: MAKE A POETRY COLLAGE
Choose a favorite poem — your own or another writer’s — and illustrate it with a collage. Magazine pictures, flower petals, scrapbook letters, colorful paper, and yarn all make handy collage supplies.
DAY 22: GET PUBLISHED
Mail an original poem to the Poetry Wall at the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine in New York City. All submissions, from poets known and unknown, are hung in the Cathedral’s ambulatory.
DAY 23: DISCOVER NEW POETRY
Former poet laureate Ted Kooser introduces hundreds of hand-picked poems as part of his American Life in Poetry project.
DAY 24: TELL A STORY IN POETRY
Learn about narrative poetry and poetic persona using Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening”and other works as your starting point.
DAY 25: MAKE EVERY DAY A POETRY DAY
Subscribe to the (free) Poem-a-Day newsletter from the Academy of American Poets, and you’ll get a poem in your inbox every morning. The selections are a nice mix of classic and modern.
DAY 26: GET DESCRIPTIVE WITH KARLA KUSKIN
Take an online workshop with poet Karla Kuskin to learn how to use strong, descriptive imagery and language in your poems.
DAY 27: CELEBRATE POEM IN YOUR POCKET DAY
Our second-favorite holiday (right after Read in the Bathtub Day), Poem in Your Pocket Day encourages you to carry a scribbled version of your favorite poem in your pocket to share with other poetry lovers throughout the day.
DAY 28: PLAY EXQUISITE CORPSE
In this surrealist take on MadLibs, players choose a syntax pattern (adjective, noun, verb, adverb, adjective, noun, perhaps) and take turns filling in the blanks to create a poem.
DAY 29: FALL IN LOVE
Read the poems of poets whose romantic relationships influenced their work, such as Elizabeth Barrettand Robert Browning, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, or Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell.
DAY 30: PLAY WITH SHEL SILVERSTEIN
Head straight for where the sidewalk ends on this fun-filled site. You’ll make your own rhymes, solve cryptograms, test your knowledge of Silverstein’s work, and more.
How to Throw the Ultimate Homeschool Pi Day Party
Is Pi Day on March 14 (3.14) the ultimate homeschool celebration? At least it’s a fun reason to celebrate the magic of math, any way you slice it.
March 14 is Pi Day — and celebrating this mathematical constant makes a fun family party, any way you slice it.
Pi Day was one of the very first homeschool holidays we celebrated together — and like creating our first successful batch of oobleck, celebrating Pi Day was one of the things that made me feel like a “real” homeschooler. As the kids got older, our celebrations got wilder and more creative, and now I can’t imagine not throwing a little homeschool shindig to celebrate March 14 (3.14, the rounded-off version of pi). Here are some of our favorite Pi Day fun ideas:
DO THIS
Turn your wall clock into a pi clock by translating the hours into radians. (You can use the pi clock by SB Crafts as a model if you want to get fancy with your equations.)
Put your pi skills to the test with Buffon’s Needle, a geometrical probability problem that dates back to 1777. It involves dropping a needle onto a sheet of lined paper and determining the probability of the needle crossing one of the lines on the page — an answer that’s directly related to pi. The Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education (MSTE) division of the College of Education at the University of Illinois has a cool simulation that walks you through the problem.
Take the Pi Day Challenge. Matthew Plummer, a former math teacher at Boston’s Hanover High School, likes celebrating Pi Day so much that he created a delightful series of online pi puzzles — some of which call for mathematical solutions, some for research, and some for critical thinking.
Write a Pilish — a poem based on the successive digits of pi. The number of the letters in each word of your poem should equal the corresponding digit of pi: so, the first word would have three letters, the second one, the third four, and so on.
READ THIS
In Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi by Cindy Neuschwander, the bold knight’s son Radius must find the cure to the potion that turned his father into a fire-breathing dragon.
WEAR THIS
The Einstein Look-a-Like competition is a beloved part of Princeton University’s annual Pi Day celebration, so join the festivities by getting dressed in your Einstein-ian best.
EAT THIS
Pie, of course!
Celebrate Random Acts of Kindness Day in Your Homeschool
Want to raise kind kids? Celebrate kindness in your homeschool!
Even your youngest homeschool students can celebrate Random Acts of Kindness Day by making the world a kinder, happier place. Here are some ideas to get you started.
Write a thank-you note. A sincere thank-you — to your neighbor who always shares her extra zucchini or the ballet teacher who inspired your dancer son — is pretty much guaranteed to make its recipient’s day.
Make a donation. Collect outgrown clothing or canned goods, and make a donation to an organization that helps other people.
Put together care packs for unhoused people. Include essentials like toothbrushes and toothpaste, deodorant, soap, and shampoo. Add bottled water and shelf-stable snacks, like granola bars, and a lightweight blanket, hat, and gloves, and distribute the packs to people who need them.
Clean up your neighborhood. You can volunteer to pick up litter at your favorite park or just collect the rubbish on your street, but caring for your environment is a great way to show kindness.
Compliment a kid to his parents. If you can genuinely praise a kid’s work or behavior, he and his parents will bask in your appreciation.
Hold the door for someone. Kids may need help with heavy doors, but most people appreciate the friendly gesture.
Leave a happy note. Jot down a message — such as “Have a beautiful day” or “You look fabulous today” — on a sticky note and leave it on a public bathroom mirror for the next person to find.
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