Teach Kids To Write Poems About Pumpkins

Writing poems about pumpkins can be a fun activity for you and your child during fall.There’s several types of poems you can write: Halloween pumpkin poems, christian pumpkin poems, acrostic pumpkin poems, etc.

How to come up with words for your poems about pumpkins

Five Little PumpkinsHere are just a few of the ways you can come up with words for your poems:

ask your child to close his or her eyes and imagine different kinds of pumpkins
work together to brainstorm and write down a list of words to describe these pumpkins
go to the store or a pumpkin patch to observe real pumpkins and write down more words
read books about pumpkins and write down even more words

I’ll get you started with a few words: Orange, golden, yellow, sunny, round, fat, tall, short, glossy, dull, skinny, lumpy, bumpy, dumpy…how many words to describe pumpkins can you and your child think of? Play with language and use words you brainstorm to write fun fall pumpkin poems.

How to write a cinquain

A cinquain is a five-line poem in which each line has a specific number of syllables: 2-4-6-8-2. A common way to organize the lines is as follows:

one word to title the poem
a two-word phrase to describe the poem’s subject
a three-word phrase (or three verbs) that describes an action the poem’s subject can take
a four-word phrase expressing the poet’s feelings about the subject
one word (or two syllables) that relates back to the title and sums up the subject

How to write an acrostic

An acrostic is a poem where the first letter of each line spells out the word that is the subject of the poem. You can share the book Autumn: An Alphabet Acrostic by Steven Scharf with your child to look at examples of fall-themed acrostic.

Help your child use your trove of descriptive pumpkin words to write an acrostic with you. You might use PUMPKIN as your subject, or perhaps PUMPKIN PIE or PUMPKIN PATCH. Or you could use a more general theme like AUTUMN and just refer to pumpkins in the lines of your poem.

How to write a haiku

Haiku can also follow several different forms, but a common form for haiku is three lines with 5-7-5 syllables. Help your child choose simple words to use and try to paint with words a mental picture of one image or feeling relating to his or her subject.

What you can talk about

Whatever your pumpkin-related topic, have your child take a moment to think about what is most important about this topic and what you should tell an audience about it in a limited amount of space.
Discuss the difficulty of expressing complex thoughts in a set poetic form and identify any benefits to writing in a poetic form, such as how it might help you focus and develop your ideas.