Activity And Project

Make a Magnetic Poetry Set

Grades
5 - 10
Activity Time
60 to 90 minutes (can be done on different days)
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Activity Description

Believe it or not, grammar can be fun! This activity has children and teens practice using different parts of speech to play a fill-in-the-blank-story game. They then make their own list of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, exclamations, and conjunctions that they turn into a personal magnetic poetry set.

 

Why This Is Helpful

Understanding the different parts of speech is important to reading and writing well. But it can be a challenge to make grammar fun and interesting. Activities like this encourage children to play with language while making sure that they know the difference between a noun and a verb or an adjective and an adverb.

This activity was modified from the ReadWriteThink lesson plan “The Magnetism of Language: Parts of Speech, Poetry, and Word Play.”

Here's What to Do

If you want the child you are working with to make a magnetic poetry set that can stick to the refrigerator, you will need to get some magnetic tape, which is available at office and teaching supply stores.

1. Visit National Geographic Kids: Funny Fill-in-the-Blank Stories with the child you are working with and choose some stories to complete. For help with the different parts of speech, visit Wacky Web Tales: Parts of Speech Help, which explains and gives examples for nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and exclamations.
 
2. Go over How to Make a Magnetic Poetry Set and make a list of words following its instructions. As the sheet points out, you can use some favorite books, magazines, or websites to find words. If the child is having trouble figuring out what parts of speech the words are, you can use the Wacky Web Tales: Parts of Speech Help or suggest looking up the words in a dictionary.
 
3. Print the words out, cut them into small rectangles, and if you choose, put them on the magnetic tape. If you want to complete the activity over a couple of sessions, you may print the different types of words on different colors of paper (for example, green paper for nouns, red paper for verbs, etc.) and have them laminated before sticking them to the magnetic tape.
 
4.

Once you have the magnetic poetry set made, encourage the child to play with the words. Some things you might try include

  • Make a fill-in-the-word poem. Have the child choose a poem, either a personal favorite or one found on the Academy of American Poets’ Poets.org page. Help the child remove the nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and exclamations from the poem, replacing them with blank spaces and the part of speech that has been removed. Choose different words from the magnetic poetry set to fill in the blanks and read the new poem out loud to hear how it sounds.
     
  • Play a game where you each take turns choosing from the words to make a sentence. The person with the longest sentence at the end wins.
     
  • Visit Acrostic Poems or Diamante Poems and use the words from the magnetic poetry set to write poems in these online tools.

More Ideas to Try

  • Visit the Kids Area of the Magnetic Poetry site and let the child create an online magnetic poem. A link from this page shows examples created by other users.
     
  • Encourage the child to add more words to the magnetic poetry set, including pronouns (for example, he, she, or us) and conjunctions (for example, can’t or won’t).

What You Need

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