Ten Books for National Poetry Month (plus a weekly poetry challenge)

  April is a mere five days away, and that means it’s almost National Poetry Month! To help you get a kick start to celebrating poetry throughout April, we’ve put together an assortment of book recommendations. You’ll find a little bit of everything in this list of ten books: poetry collections, picture book stories told in poems, biographies of poets, even a novel in verse! We hope this list is just the beginning of a month of reading, discussing and doing (that is, writing ) poetry! We have a month long celebration planned in which we challenge our readers and the children in their lives to read, discuss, and write four different types of poems—one challenge per week. You can join the weekly poetry fun by subscribing to our newsletter , visiting the website regularly for updates, following us on Instagram (@readdiscussdo), or all of the above! To read : Choose a book from this list or any poetry book. To discuss : Do you usually like poetry? Why or why not? Can you think of a poem y

12 Story Time Activities that You Can Do Anywhere

by Rebecca J. Gomez

Sometimes, combining story time with an activity isn't convenient. You may be in the car, in a waiting room, or you might just want to stay curled up on the couch! But that's no reason to cut story time short. After reading the book and discussing the story in general, try going further with one or more of these activity ideas. No extra material required!


1. Make up alternate endings.

2. Ask your child to relay the story to you in their own words.

3. Act out the story in part or in whole.

4. Use context clues to define new and unfamiliar vocabulary.

5. Investigate the illustrations for additional layers to the story.

6. Look through the text for examples of literary devices, such as alliteration, rhyme, and simile.

7. Tell personal stories that relate to the text of the book.

8. Examine your immediate surroundings and compare/contrast them with the book's setting.

9. Have little ones explore the text to find familiar letters or words.

10. Go back through the illustrations and count repeating elements.

11. Play a game of charades based on the book's characters and events.

12. Choose a letter of the alphabet. Have your child go through the book's illustrations to find things that begin with that letter.

Do you have any ideas you would add to this list? Let us know in the comments!

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A version of this post previously appeared on www.rebeccajgomez.com

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