How to Teach Poetry to 2nd Graders

Kids love rhyme and rhthym and so teaching poetry to 2nd graders is engaging and fun because kids are hooked from the get go!

Here are a few fun and easy ideas that you can incorporate into your teaching and learning program:

Introduce your poetry unit with poems that your students already know: Tapping into students’ prior knowledge and connecting with their experiences is important. So begin with nursery rhymes, rhyming text in picture books and songs with repetitive patterns
Clap and Snap Rhythm Games: As your students sing or recite rhyming text, have them clap and snapto the rhythm! This helps them to recognize the sound patterns in language and develop an understanding of words that belong to the same word family.
Feel the Rhythm: After reciting poetry, talk to your students about the emotions they felt. How did the poem make them feel? Encourage the expression of feelings to help students understand that poetry can be emotive. Invite students to share their ideas with a partner during Think Pair Share, small group or whole class!
Integrated Learning: Integrate poetry into other learning areas. This makes it more meaningful, rather than focusing on rhyme and rhythm only during your Poetry Unit. Point out word families and rhyming words when reading a science or social studies text or create a poem about Community Helpers etc.

If you’re looking for a no prep Poetry Unit that you project on your smartboard for whole class explicit teaching and then print rhyming worksheets for students to create their own fabulous phonics poems, click here for your copy! Then this resource comes in both print and digital formats and teaches the elements of poetry through reading and writing and building comprehension. Students creating their own poems using word families and rhyming words!

Suitable for:

First Grade
Second Grade
Third Grade