Tag: writing children’s poetry

Last week we talked to Sally Murphy about writing poetry and she mentioned that she likes playing with magnetic words to write poetry. Today’s challenge is to use magnetic words to write your own short poem.

Here are some ways you could go about it:

• If you have your own set of magnetic words — use them on a fridge or table top to write a short poem. (Or try this extra challenge — scoop a large handful of words and only select words from this handful when writing your poem!)
• Try an online magnetic words site like Magnetic Poetry. This site gives you the equivalent of scooping a large handful of magnetic words. You can choose words from that handful to write your poem. Note: check with a parent or teacher first to get permission to visit the website.
• If you have an iPad, ask your parents’ permission and check out the free Word Mover app (recommended by The Book Chook!)
• If you don’t own magnetic words and you don’t want to use an app or an online site — ask family or friends to call out words and write them down on slips of paper. When you have a small pile, use these like magnetic words to write your poem.

You might make some extra rules for yourself — will you limit yourself to the words in front of you? Will you be allowed to change words slightly (like adding an ‘s’ or ‘ed’ to a word)? Can you add conjunctions (like ‘and’ or ‘because’) if they are not already in your pile of words? You decide!

Here’s one I wrote, using words at the Magnetic Poetry site. I didn’t allow myself to change or add words when I wrote my poem.

Under tiger sun

they go

balloon in hand

whispering

—

Your turn! If you write a poem using magnetic words, we’d love you to leave it in the comments. (Grownups are welcome to take part too, but please note we are G-rated!)