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[b]Published April 10, 2023 by Shannon McClintock Miller[/b] @h5 We celebrate National Poetry Month every year in April. This is a time to bring words to life through special experiences, projects, and celebrations with your students and school community. I love using art, writing, music, acting, and more to teach children about poetry and inspire them to be poets. I also love to think of ways to tie different subjects such as science, math, and history into Poetry Month and poetic opportunities throughout the year. One resource that is especially helpful to tie all of the different subjects into Poetry Month is PebbleGo. PebbleGo is not only the best place for sending our youngest learners to research, read and navigate topics they love, it is also a place to inspire play on words in which they can create their own poetry from this exploration and fun. As we celebrate National Poetry Month and get ready to celebrate Poem In Your Pocket Day, I'd like to share three ways to use PebbleGo in poetry projects with your students and community. @h5 PebbleGo Biographies Acrostic Poems An acrostic poem is created by using the letters in a word to begin each line of the poem. Each line of the poem describes or relates to the main topic word of the acrostic poem. One of my daughter, Brianna's, favorite art projects when she was in elementary school was to create an acrostic poem and transform it into a big collage poster using cut-out magazine letters, pastels, and black paper. It was so much fun for her to show off this wonderful poetry creation of words that described herself. Using PebbleGo Biographies, you can have students pick a special person they want to research and create an acrostic poem describing that person. This could be done with black paper, pastels, cut out magazine letters and phrases, and other art materials. The PebbleGo Biography acrostic poems can also be created digitally using [url=https://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/acrostic-poems]ReadWriteThink's Acrostic Poem creator[/url]. For example, I just read the article about Rosa Parks in PebbleGo Biographies. I used this awesome digital tool to brainstorm words and create my own acrostic poem about Rosa. @image /content/dam/pebblegodev/blog/Poems.png An image of a poem When they have finished their PebbleGo Biography Acrostic Poems, have the students create one about themselves using ReadWriteThink, too. @h5 PebbleGo Science Shape Poems A shape poem is a type of poetry that is shaped like the object the poem is describing. I especially enjoy using shape poetry with science topics because there are so many amazing ways they can be created. PebbleGo Science is the perfect resource for creating shape poems with your students. PebbleGo Science Shape Poems can be created with paper, pencils, and art supplies. In this post from the [url=https://istgrade2.wordpress.com/2010/03/31/shape-poems/]IST Grade 2 blog[/url], you will see how they created shape poems with words and drawings woven together to create their poems. I especially love the “Ice Cream!” shape poem. @image /content/dam/pebblegodev/blog/ice-cream.png drawing of an ice cream cone We also created shape poems using a collage technique by drawing the shape on a piece of paper and filling in the outside around the shape with tiny pieces of ripped paper and glue. Once the collage part was complete and dry, the students wrote their poems on the inside of the shape on the papers. They can be created digitally with another tool from [url=https://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/theme-poems#overview]ReadWriteThink called Shape (Theme) Poems[/url]. @image /content/dam/pebblegodev/blog/nature-folder.png A screenshot of a game There are lots of different science shapes. I chose to create a shape poem using a raindrop shape I found in this category so I researched the Cloud article in PebbleGo Science to find keywords and terms I might want to use. Once I had my word list, I was able to write the words in the raindrop to make my PebbleGo Science Shape Poem. @image /content/dam/pebblegodev/blog/theme-poems-continue.png A screenshot of a poem You can let them pick topics around the predetermined topics or ones they are passionate about, too. And they don't have to be all about science. There are lots of different shapes in these different categories including sports, shapes, school, and more. @image /content/dam/pebblegodev/blog/theme-poems.png A screenshot of a computer game @h5 PebbleGo Animal and Dinosaur Word Cloud Poems Word Clouds are images made up of words about a certain topic or subject. The words can be in different sizes, colors, fonts, and in varying formations to make the word cloud unique. Word clouds can be created by having the students write or paint the words on a piece of paper, but they are very fun to create digitally with tools such as [url=https://www.abcya.com/games/word_clouds]ABCYa Word Cloud[/url]. And for this poetry project, having the students research animals and dinosaurs in PebbleGo will lead to some fun word clouds. One of my favorite animals is pigs, so I went to PebbleGo Animals to read the article about pigs. I learned so much and even watched a little video about pigs. Then, I went to ABCya Word Cloud and brainstormed all of the words that made me think about pigs. I made sure they sounded good together too. Once I was happy with the words, I picked out the layout, color, and font to create this word cloud about pigs. If you and your students want to create word clouds that actually look like the shape of a certain animal or dinosaur, you might want to check out [url=https://wordart.com/]Word Art[/url] too. This will be one where kids might need some help. They are easy to print, share, and save. As you can see, there are so many ways that PebbleGo can be used during Poetry Month and throughout the year with all kinds of poetry projects and learning. The three ideas I shared are just a start! Happy Poetry Month, friends. Don't forget to celebrate Poem in Your Pocket on April 18th and include these fun, creative and inspirational projects with your students this month and all year long.