What better way to teach poetry and vocabulary than with an activity or exercise that makes kids laugh out loud! These Poetry Mad Libs take classic poems and ask kids to turn them into bits of hilarity. It's a great activity for National Poetry Month!
As I've written before, we've used Mad Libs to smooth the way in lots of different circumstances. For example, Mad Libs are a great substitute for dinner conversation, a great travel activity, and an essential item to have at family gatherings.
Now, if you need a hilarious way to encourage your kids to love poetry, Mad Libs will provide the entry point.
To get you started, we've created four Mad Libs for you to do with your kids. Once you get the hang of it, kids can create their own Mad Libs based on famous poems or write their own!
Poetry Mad Libs
The four poetry Mad Libs in our printable are based on the following poems:
- "Now We Are Six." by A.A. Milne
- "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," by Robert Frost
- "Be Glad Your Nose Is on Your Face," by Jack Prelutsky
- "How Doth the Little Crocodile," by Lewis Carroll
I've varied the complexity of words that need to be inserted into the poems. For example, the Milne poem only requires a few rhyming words, but the others require a wider variety like place names, adverbs, different verb tenses and pronouns. Choose a poem based on the skill level of your children.
Directions
If you are unfamiliar with Mad Libs, the directions are simple. Traditional Mad Libs consist of a short narrative in which random words are removed. Each blank spot in the Mad Lib indicates which part of speech is needed to fill in the missing word. Noun, verb, adverb, etc. One person asks another person to contribute a suggestion for the missing word and then writes the missing word into the Mad Lib.
For example, in the following sentence:
My love is like a red, red, _________ (noun),
The first player asks the second for a noun, without reading the rest of the sentence. The player may contribute any noun, no matter how absurd. For example, "foot."
When all missing words have been completed the holder of the Mad Lib reads the new narrative:
My love is like a red, red foot.
Enjoy!
Chloe Gioia says
GOOD IDEA!!!