Leigh Anne Eck has invited Slicers to come to a blog party about words. Where would poets be without words? I am not a word nerd, but I am a word collector. I love to play with sounds in poetry, especially alliteration. I subscribe to two word-of-the-day emails, and work with gifted students on how words are created and carry different meanings. Words are fun for me.
Here are some suggestions for activities to do with students around word play.
- Definito poem: My friend and fellow Inkling (writing group) created this form. The poem form is 8-12 lines written for children that defines a word. The defined word appears in the last line. I wrote a definito last year during National Poetry Month around the word shenanigans.
2. Wandering Word Poem: I first learned about this word exploration form from Nikki Grimes in this Today’s Little Ditty post. Take a word for a walk, exploring all the ways it can be used, literally and figuratively.
3. Pi-ku: On Pi Day each year (3/14) we write pi-ku which is a poem with the syllable count of pi: 3.14159…
I played with the sounds of p-words.
P-popping
Margaret Simon, pi-ku
words
popularly
drop
perpetuity
How do you “play” with words in your writing? If you work with students, I hope you can use the forms I’ve shared here and just let them play with poetry.
Reflections on the Teche 
What a fun slice! I love all three of these ways to play with words. Even your definito has some great words to collect–a collection within a collection! Thank you for playing along!
Every poem form is enchanting in its own way. I really love the Wandering Word…it is like the way I think! And I loved following the rippling of your thoughts, from the science to leaving ticking sand residue on your toes. Makes me yearn for the shore.
You are always amazing and inspiring!
Thanks for these, such clever ways of making poetry. I think they are beyond my students’ grasp as second language English speakers, but I would love to use them somehow.
Margaret, such fun word choices you brought to this word buffet. And three poem ideas too. Perfect! You are constantly teaching and helping lead others to poetry. Brava! I wrote my word buffet post today too, with another poetry idea for one of them.
Wow, you catered so much more than just words. Thank you for the poems!
Margaret, you are always on the lookout for a great word or a OLW that will take you through another year.