• Home
  • Poetry Prompts
  • For Writers
  • Daily Poem-Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Free Stuff + BOOKS
  • Patron Love

It’s Take Your Poet to School Week!

By Will Willingham Leave a Comment

Take your Poet to School Week girl on swing
Every July, when we celebrate the most fun day for poetry on the planet, Take Your Poet to Work Day, we hear the collective lament of teachers, librarians and students asking, “Please do this during the school year. We want to play too!”

Well, we happen to think poetry can be serious fun at work, and after work, during the summer, and while school is in session. And what better time to kick off that serious fun during school than National Poetry Month? Now, you can celebrate five whole days of Take Your Poet to School Week with us!

Take Your Poet to School Week Poets

We’ve also created cut ‘n color poets with special appeal to students:

Mother Goose
Mother Goose
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Ogden Nash
Ogden Nash
Shel Silverstein
Shel Silverstein

Remember, you can also use any of the poets in our Take Your Poet to Work collection (most would probably rather go to school, anyway). You’ll find many of your favorites:

Sara Teasdale
Pablo Neruda
The Haiku Masters
Edgar Allan Poe
T.S. Eliot
Rumi
Emily Dickinson
John Keats
Adrienne Rich
W.B. Yeats
Langston Hughes
Sylvia Plath
Christina Rossetti
Walt Whitman
William Shakespeare
Maya Angelou
Wisława Szymborska
Anna Akhmatova
Robert Frost
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Judith Wright
Emily Brontë
Seamus Heaney
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
William Wordsworth

 

free take your poet to school week coloring book featureDownload a Special Printable Coloring Book

Our printable coloring book features our classic cut ‘n color collection plus all four of the new poets.

Celebrate with a New Theme Every Day of Take Your Poet to School Week (Use One of These or Make Your Own!)

Monday: Talk Like a Poet Day. Answer questions in iambic pentameter or 5-7-5 Haiku form. Choose a favorite poem word or phrase and find ways to change a word and insert it into conversation throughout the day. For example, Poe’s “Nevermore,” T.S. Eliot’s “Shall I eat a peach,” Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers” or even William Carlos Williams’s “This is just to say.”)

Tuesday: Poet on a T-Shirt Day. Using fabric paints, create a T-shirt design with your favorite poet or favorite poem line.

Wednesday: Poet in Your Math Book Day. Many poems reference math (and many poem forms require at least a basic understanding of math). Consider Carl Sandburg’s “How Much,” Walt Whitman’s “When I Heard the Ancient Astronomer” and Emily Dickinson’s “One day is there of the series.” To celebrate the intersection of poetry and math, print out your favorite poem or poet and tuck it into your math book for the day.

Thursday: Dress Like a Poet Day. Perhaps you’re fond of the Beat Poets’ black beret. Or, like Emily Dickinson, you find a simple white dress charming. Dress up like your favorite poet for the day.

Take Your Poet to School Week

Friday: Poet in a Cupcake Day

Of course, this is all just the big lead up to our favorite, sweet event to cap off the week: Poet in a Cupcake Day. Students can research a few fun facts about their favorite poet, then decorate cupcakes (real or cut-out) to match. Pop in a poet-on-a-stick and have a platter full of fun poet love to share with friends.

Poet in a Cupcake Day Printable

Download Printable Poet in a Cupcake Cutout & Ideas

Printable Poet in a Cupcake Cutout & Ideas

Download Printable Poet in a Cupcake Cutout & Ideas

More Integrated Studies Celebration Ideas!

Take Your Poet to School Hanging Mobile1. Poet mobile. Get a hoop, a hanger, or even sticks from the yard. Attach strings and tie on your favorite cut ‘n color poets.

2. Poet timeline. Secure a string or fishing line from one end of the room to another. Write historical events on cards and clip them to the string. Choose some of your favorite poets and add them at their proper junctures in history.

3. Poetmobile. What kind of car would your favorite poet drive? Design a custom poetmobile for him or her. For instance, you could rev up your engine and make a sleek black “Raven” car with wings for Edgar Allan Poe. You get the idea.

4. Poet rap or memory-poems duel. Stage an epic poet rap or memory-poems duel. Invite friends to the front of the class, dress as your favorite poets, let loose the words and may the best poet win.

5. Poet parade. Put your favorite cut ‘n color poets on popsicle sticks and take them for a parade around the playground or to visit another classroom.

Take Your Poet to Work Day garden gif6. Poet garden. If your school has a garden, or even a few potted plants in the classroom, make it a poet garden by tucking in your poets-on-a-stick.

7. Poets on Stage. Hang a sheet over a string tied across the room (or make a small theater with a big box) and stage a poet puppet show with your cut ‘n color poets on popsicle sticks.

8. Poet on the Shelf. All throughout National Poetry Month, make acceptable mischief with a favorite poet (Elf on the Shelf style). Each day, create a new scene with your poet. Take photos and post to Twitter or Instagram and we might feature! #poetontheshelf

9. Poet Secret Admirers. Poets have often been known to write little (poetic) notes to their friends. Cut out poets and a favorite verse and leave them anonymously for your friends.

Tell us how you celebrate!

Post your Take Your Poet to School Week fun on social media. Use the hashtag #poettoschool and tag us (@tspoetry on Twitter and Instagram). We might feature you so everyone can share your fun!

Featured image by Capture Queen, Creative Commons license via Flickr. (Poets added.)

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Will Willingham
Follow Will
Will Willingham
Director of Many Things; Senior Editor, Designer and Illustrator at Tweetspeak Poetry
I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel, Adjustments, is available now.
Will Willingham
Follow Will
Latest posts by Will Willingham (see all)
  • The Reindeer Chronicles Book Club: You’re Cutting a Tree in Almería and Getting a Storm in Dusseldorf - February 17, 2021
  • The Reindeer Chronicles Book Club: We Can Never Approach the Wisdom of These Animals - February 10, 2021
  • The Reindeer Chronicles Book Club: That Which Has Been Damaged Can Be Healed - February 3, 2021

Related

❤️✨ Sharing is caring

Filed Under: National Poetry Month, Take Your Poet to School Week

About Will Willingham

I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel, Adjustments, is available now.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our February Menu.

Keep the World Poetic

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world thoughtful and poetic.

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Join the Poetry Club

Join the poetry club, when you become a subscriber to Every Day Poems ✨

The classic—Now a Graphic Novel!

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

Recent Comments

  • Lord of the Flies: Poem to a Conch | Tweetspeak Poetry on Heroes and Villains Poetry Prompt: Lord of the Flies
  • Bethany Rohde on Postcards from Burrow & Meadow · No. 1 Breathing
  • Sandra Heska King on Postcards from Burrow & Meadow · No. 1 Breathing
  • Glynn on Poets and Poems: Samuel Hazo and “The Next Time We Saw Paris”

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Join Tweetspeak Poetry

Categories

Explore Work From Black Poets

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

Free Printable Poet Bios

Browse all poet bios now

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

About Us

  • • Generous-Annual Theme 2021
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • How to Write Form Poems-Infographics
  • • Poetry Club Tea Date
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Best Love Poetry
  • • Book Club
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Children’s Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Literary Analysis
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • VerseWrights Journal
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library
  • • 50 States Projects

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Give the Gift of Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2021 Tweetspeak Poetry · Site by The Willingham Enterprise · FAQ & Disclosure