Get Ready for Poetry Month!

April is almost here, and officially, it will be National Poetry Month. But I don't wait for April to celebrate a good poem, and I usually read many afterward as well.

But April is the time that we celebrate poetry together. Teachers and librarians will share resources, strategies, and ideas, and hopefully, everyone will find a poem they love!

In plotting out my thinking for the month, I know I will rely on these two books (among others):

Vardell, Sylvia M. and Janet Wong. The Poetry Friday Anthology: Poems for the School Year with Connections to the TEKS K-5 Edition. Princeton, NJ: Pomelo, 2012. Print.

This book is a treasure for teachers and librarians. It offers a set of 36 poems for each grade level and the suggested list of activities is a timesaver. The poets included are the best in children's literature.

Prelutsky, Jack and Arnold Lobel. The Random House Book of Poetry for Children: A Treasury of 572 Poems for Today's Child. New York: Random House, 1983. Print.

This book is a staple of most libraries. I like that it has an index of subjects. So, if you'd like to to find a poem about libraries (for example), you can find one here. I even found a great poem for St. Patrick's Day.

Our poetry section in the library is already decorated, and I look happily toward Poem in Your Pocket Day. At this point, I am looking for any reason to share a poem.

I have several ideas of great events for the library, and I'm pinning them to my Pinterest board here.
Are you excited about poetry month?