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Raven Howell

Children's Books and Poetry

Activities and inspiration for home or your classroom!


Friendship Cookie Recipe

Friends Come in All Sizes

Resource Activity Download

Print. Be imaginative when filling in the blanks. The page can be downloaded as a PDF, by clicking on the image at left, or the link above.

Trolls at play end thoughts

Trolls at Play

Resource Activity Download
Teachers and parents, after reading Trolls at Play, have your child or student review this resource page and provide as many answers as possible. The page can be downloaded as a PDF, by clicking on the image at right, or the link above.

Fish Activity thumbnail

Rhymes That Go From Head to Toe Resource Activity

Resource Activity Download
In my book, Rhymes That Go From Head to Toe, children learn about bodies and body parts. Fish and other animals have body parts, too. Click on the link above to print out this sheet to color, cut and fold a cute little fish while learning about fins and scales.

box poetry

Holiday Resource Activity

Resource Activity Download
Click on the link above for a free holiday resource to share with your children and students in elementary school. This learning resource accompanies my book A Cheer for the Year in a downloadable print-out activity that will benefit caregivers and educators teaching from home.

box poetry

Try this! A Flock of Fun Box Poetry!

Children come with a big box.
Prompt the kids with pictures or favorite words from the book, then encourage them to hop in the boxes with crayons to write and draw out their own poems or rhymes.

Put Poetry on your Agenda

watercolor car drawing
Illustration © 2014, Maris Howell, from Dozy Poems

Poetry enables parents and teachers to teach their children and students how to write, read, and understand just about any text. It also allows for a healthy outlet for emotions.  

Every word in a poem is well-chosen, and therefore, there's nothing better than reading them aloud. Reading them with a theatric flair can get everyone's attention, so make sure you know your poems before sharing them with your child or your class. Don't oversupply them with material, but ask questions such as, "How do you think the poet feels?" or "What does that make you think of?" after a poem. Especially with ages 8 and older, poetry in the class works best when students are given the chance to take part.

For younger children, having visual aids and related activities to the poems can greatly enhance teaching poetry.

Lilac

First Things First

When bringing poetry into the home or classroom, the most important thing is to work with poems that will amuse and engage the children. Be realistic of your children's attention span. Introducing them to poems in a fun or delightful way can ensure curiosity and a positive attitude about poetry for years to come!

Teaching unit based on My Community

Help your child or student to select a paragraph or phrase from My Community. Perhaps it’s from their favorite page. Ask them to use the text to springboard into writing a poem of their own. They can either use the actual line or two to start off, or take the idea and run with it!

My Community is filled with pages of various community members, their jobs, and various daily activities – a conducive book for this writing tip. Instruct the child that they may condense, reorder or re-work the text they pull from the book and continue writing. If a student ends up with a story instead of a poem – that’s wonderful, too!

page from My Communnity

Here’s an example:
“The sun rises, a flicker-flash” (from the book)
As yellow as a ribbon sash.
I like the day better than night
To play outside in all the bright.

Teaching unit based on my book
Shimmer, Songs of Night

with Glenham School principal
Raven with the Glenham Elementary School Principal, Cassandra Orser

To get your students or children motivated, surprise them with a word bank!

Sometimes on my class visits, I come armed with a bucketful of words written down on little folded bits of paper. The children choose one and then use that word as the focus or subject of the poem that they will try writing.

Start by using words based on my book: whisper, taxi, beehive, fairy, sonata, violin, popcorn, sunflower, detective, sandman, cheer, opossum, and candle. Depending on the age group, I come up with a variety of subjects for the children's to write about. I've even had success when some children trade their word with others if they feel stuck.