Here are some good hints and tips for tackling Christmas acrostic poems - a fun poetry activity to try with the kids this year - from Shelly.
We have written acrostic poems before and loved the activity. I remember being amazed at how much writing my son did while creating his poems and he did it all while he was chatting away and enjoying himself - so I thought we should have another go at creating our own acrostic poems, but this time with a festive spin on it. Plus there is a whole section of Christmas Acrostic Poem Printables just waiting to be used!
Working on their Christmas acrostic poems
For those of you who think poetry can be intimidating I urge you to try acrostic poems! All those scary concepts - trying to think of rhyming words and creating a pattern and rhythm - do not apply. Of course if you want to make the poem rhyme you can but you don’t have to. All you do is think of words or phrases that start with the letters of the word you are spelling out. You can even keep it really simple with just one word for each letter, like in this example:
CAT – Curious, Awesome, Tenacious
It really is a lot easier than worrying about words that rhyme and with my kids that means they tend to relax more, enjoy it and aften end up doing a lot of writing.
My son started with a poem about a robin. He always finds writing about an animal easier so it is a great way to get him started. My daughter started with this Santa Acrostic Poem Printable.
Busy writing his robin acrostic poem
I was using this session as just an “enjoyment of writing” task and I did not focus on spelling errors. I have found in the past that always correcting spelling leads to kids feeling scared to try new words and it ends up distroying that creative mood, so when my youngest asked for help with spelling words I helped him but if I noticed a small error I just ignored it. Later on, when he was reading his poems out loud he noticed one of the spelling errors and corrected it himself.
His finished robin acrostic poem
When the kids were younger I found printing out word mats helped them. There is a lovely Christmas Word Mat and Winter Word Mat which some of you might find useful. You could also create a spider diagram with useful themed words so they have a word bank to refer to.
Her finished Santa acrostic poem
They worked on quite a few different poems and I was really impressed with some of the phrases and thoughts that they came up with. They also started a few poems which they struggled to complete but I suggested they should just leave the half-finished poems and come back to them in a few days time.
Writing an acrostic about a snowman
His finished snowman acrostic poem
My daughter also tried a few poems that were not under the Christmas section. She liked the idea of writing a family poem and some on feelings like Joy and Happiness. You can find all the acrostic poem printables here.
Her finished family acrostic poem
The kids also started making some of their own templates for new words and for duplicates. Our printer was crying out for more ink and I was just a bit slow sorting it out!
Creating his own poem template
Our Christmas acrostic poem session was a great way to get into the festive session and it was a brilliant creative writing activity.
Finished Christmas themed acrostics
More Christmas acrostics!
Links
- Christmas Acrostic Poem Printables
- Robin Acrostic Poem Printable
- Santa Acrostic Poem Printable
- Christmas Word Mat
- Winter Word Mat
- Family Acrostic Poem Printable
- All Acrostic Poem Printables
This is a guest post from Shelly. Shelly is a home educating parent of two children aged 10 and 12. She blogs at ofamily learning together where she shares ideas on the different learning activities that they do including lots of hand-on maths, arts and crafts and anything else that is part of their home educating lifestyle.
You can find more guest posts by Shelly, and a list of all our guest posts, here.
