Book Spine Poetry

In recognition of National Poetry Month, I am having my second grade classes create book spine poems this week.

The first day, after discussing what poetry is and looking at different types of poems, I showed them examples of some clever book spine poetry. Then I had them search the shelf for books to create their own poems.  I quickly realized that they needed more guidance.

So the second day, I had already gathered some books and had them work in groups of five to create a poem with the books they were given.  The poems that were created came out much better and made more sense.  Although I did pull books for them, it was up to the group to decide which books to use and how to arrange them.

If I were doing this lesson with an older class, say fourth or fifth, I would let them choose books from the shelf on their own.   But having books with titles that sort of flow together really helped the second graders come up with some great poetry.  I think of it like giving them those magnetic words and arranging those words to make a poem.

I even found a downloadable file that you can get for free to make your own magnetic poetry  for a library center.  Such a fun idea!  You can get it here for free on TpT from 3rd Grade Lex.

If you'd like more ideas for book spine poetry, check out these blog posts:
2013 Book Spine Poem Gallery on 100 Scope Notes
Book Spine Poetry on The Loco Teacher  (free book spine poetry downloadable on this post!)
Book Spine Poetry on Barrow Media Center
Spine Poetry on Mrs. Lodge's Library

So are you doing anything fun to celebrate National Poetry Month?