This Thursday, April 26th, is Poem in Your Pocket Day. This is such a fun way to celebrate poetry during National Poetry Month.
For this day, you find a poem or write a poem and keep it handy (in your pocket) so that you can read it to anyone and everyone you come in contact with during the day. It is a great activity to share with your students. This year my entire school is getting involved!
Here are some great resources you might find useful.
Information for Poem in Your Pocket Day
Example Poems for your pocket: (Just print, cut and carry.)
Unfortunately, PIYP Day sometimes lands during a school vacation or on a day that is inconvenient for you, your class or your school. That is the case for my school this year. (We have two first grade classes who are going on a field trip, but are excited to join the poetry fun.) So we decided to change the date to Wednesday instead of Thursday. Even though we will be celebrating this on a different day, the effect will certainly be there. We could also encourage students to continue the celebration of poetry on the actual day by carrying their poem two days!
I can’t wait to see how it all pans out tomorrow in our school as children and adults of all ages share their favorite poems with one another. I’ll be certain to comment with updates.
In the meantime, please tell: Do you like this idea? Do you celebrate PIYP Day? Would you? How? What’s your poem you will keep in your pocket?
Keep a poem in your pocket
and a picture in your head
and you’ll never feel lonely at night when you’re in bed.
The little poem will sing to you
the little picture bring to you
a dozen dreams to dance to you
at night when you’re in bed.
So–
Keep a picture in your pocket
and a poem in your head
and you’ll never be lonely at night when you’re in bed.
-Beatrice Schenk de Regniers
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Our PIYP day was fun! The students were quite excited across the grade levels and many students who didn’t prepare for the day (didn’t have a poem), quickly found one to write down and carry around. There were many students who share their own original poetry! How fun! And of course there were stories of students who you never thought would get interested in anything, take this activity and run with it.
We decided to pick times throughout the day to share a poem and an announcement was made during these times:
Start the day with a poem by our Principal
10:00 stop and read your poem to a classmate
1:45 stop and go into another class and read your poem to a student in your grade.
2:15 stop and read someone else’s poem in your room.
2:50 end of the day poem over PA System.
This was a great way to make sure that there was time thoughout the day to share poems, but reality is that the interruptions were not always at the best times – can’t please everyone’s schedule. Maybe next year we would only do one announcement in the middle of the day and leave it up to the teachers/teams to decide upon another time that fits better into their day.
Ideas are already in the works for next year. Our librarian and Reading specialist ordered colorful pockets to give out to students that bring in a poem. We’re even throwing around the idea of taking the poem sharing to the streets of Amesbury by bringing select students to our downtown to recite and hand out poems in the community. (This idea was inspired by the video on the first link in this post.)
The fact that we generated such great excitement around poetry was so meaningful. I hope that nice feeling of connecting with poetry is never lost!