Kids love writing these easy acrostic poems, just like they enjoy writing Haikus. Acrostic poems are super simple for children to do and fun for them because the ideas are endless!
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Any Theme!
They go great with ANY theme! If you are focusing on a particular Science, History, Geography or Math lesson, take a break and let the kids write an Acrostic poem about the topic!
My post SNOW POETRY includes an Acrostic poem.
Beginning of the School Year
At the beginning of a school year, you can have each student write an acrostic poem using their name! Taking and hanging a picture of each child next to their poem makes for a great art accent.
NOW THE LESSON!
Here are the steps I use to teach this prompt:
- Explain to the children that an Acrostic poem is a word written vertically. Each letter of the word is then used to describe the vertical word.
- Give each student a piece of paper. I use this page with a border so it looks nicer.
- Have them choose a word that they want to write about.
- Have them use markers or ABC stickers* to write their word vertically on the left hand side of their paper.
NOW TO WRITE!
- For each letter of the vertical word, write a single word or phrase about the vertical word.
2. Second, students can illustrate their acrostic if they’d like.
Check out these examples!
Print the Lesson
Here’s the full lesson for you to print and use.
Or, write a Father’s Day acrostic poem here.
GAMES TO PLAY!
The first time I played this acrostic game, I laughed so hard. It was lively and the responses the campers came up with were so great!
We played this game after writing acrostic poems.
The picture above is a picture of the first time I played this game with campers. It was a small group. I divided them into 4 groups and gave them each a section on the whiteboard.
CHOCOLATE!
I called out the word CHOCOLATE. The older participants wrote CHOCOLATE vertically on the board. Then, they worked together as a group, taking turns, writing descriptive words and phrases (about chocolate) next to each letter in the word CHOCOLATE.
Larger Groups
Nowadays, our groups are typically larger so I divide the group into pairs. If you have multiple ages, it’s best to pair older children with younger. I give each pair a small white board, dry erase marker and a sock to serve as an eraser. You can purchase a class pack on Amazon*.
I write a word vertically on the board for the campers to copy on their whiteboards.
Then, they work together to write descriptive words that begin with each vertical letter.
I call this game a race, but we never keep points on who finishes first. We don’t need to. The kids have so much fun simply reading off their original ideas!
As for which words to use, you may want to use thematic words according to what you’re students are working on. When, I taught Poetry Around the World, I used travel vocabulary such as plane, passport, Asia, suitcase, etc.
Or you can just play for fun with whatever words. Here are some words that I’ve used in the past: Cereal, pigs, slime, mud, roller coaster, pens, Earth.
Continue play until everyone has had a couple of turns or the allotted time runs out!
Print the Instructions
Here are the game instructions for you to print out and use.
We always play this game after writing Acrostic poems.
After completing an acrostic poem from the SNOW POETRY post, you can play acrostic races using the winter words listed.
