Handprint Poems: Poetry Writing for Kids

Poetry can be such a daunting subject.

There is verse, structure, rhyme, and meter. There are sonnets, haiku, limericks, and odes. Then there are the metaphors… oh, the metaphors.

Where do you begin?

These simple handprint poems are a great place to begin!

 

Despite all the complicated terms, poetry is actually quite easy and fun to enjoy with kids.

We’ve read tons of great poetry for kids. (That’s always a good place to start.)

We’ve also gotten creative and written a few of our own.

For this project, our poems were quite simple and we used our hand prints as a guide.

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Make your handprints

We started our project by tracing our hands.

I cut a white sheet of paper in half so I wouldn’t overwhelm the girls with too big of a piece. I wanted their hand prints to fill the paper and not look lost in the background.

The girls then traced their hand print with a marker.

Write your handprint poems

Now it was time to write.

We wrote “All About Me” in the palm of the hands and used the fingers to describe ourselves.

Our poems aren’t very formal, and one could argue, not very poem-like. But, that wasn’t the point.

Luckily, poetry can be anything you want it to be. My daughter’s poem was short, and at 11 syllables, even shorter than haiku. No matter. It was hers and it was poetry.

My daughter’s poem was pretty awesome (and did you catch that she described herself as awesome!). It was simple and it was true. It was any easy way to get her writing and being creative. I loved it!

Check out the rest of the 2nd Grade Blogging Team for more posts about poetry for kids:

9 Poetry Books your child might enjoy – Planet Smarty Pants

Introducing Children to the poems of Rober Louis Stevenson – In the Playroom

Free Printable Poetry for Fall – Life Over C’s

Digraph Spelling Word Poems – Sugar Aunts

Autumn Fires Copywork – Sallie Borrink Learning

Cinquain Poetry for Kids – Still Playing School

Solar System Poetry – Rainy Day Mum

If you enjoyed these handprint poems, the above photo is perfect for sharing on Facebook or you can save the photo below on Pinterest.