Kenn Nesbitt was the Children’s Poet Laureate from 2013-2015. He has written humorous poetry for children including the book Revenge of the Lunch Ladies. His website Poetry4kids.com is a great resource for a poetry unit!
From the HOME screen, clicking on Funny Poems brings a menu of many of Kenn’s poems. Students and teachers have easy access to
There is also an option to play podcasts of Kenn’s poems with the poem also appearing on the website. It is possible to subscribe to the podcast. There is also an option to sign up for his email, where you will receive weekly funny poems.
Clicking on the NEWS box brings great advice for writing poetry including “How to Write a Repetition Poem,” “That Doesn’t Sound Right to Me, (varies in pronunciation), These well-written lessons are a great resource for teaching elements of poetry.
Teachers will love the AboutPoetryMinute.org feature. This is a poem for each day of the school year (September to June) which can be read in approximately one minute. It includes a variety of authors and is a fabulous way to get your kids hooked on poetry.
Lesson Plans–WOW–take a look! There are many lessons on writing poems in the lesson section including topic selection, rhythm, many poetic forms, terms in poetry, and even a video on rhyming. Alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, personification, rhyming schemes, similes, metaphors, using senses, acrostics, cinquain, concrete poems, diamante, haiku, limericks and much more! Everything you need to get your poets writing!
There is also an online rhyming dictionary with options to sort based upon how common the word is or the length of the word.
Another resource is a glossary of poetic vocabulary terms.
Students, teachers, and parents will enjoy the vast variety of games available on the website. The poetry and word games are both educational and fun! This is great for enrichment or a terrific source to suggest to parents.
