Falling back upon good old imagery for the I lesson plan, and it is one that sure ignites your imagination! Then I am having some fun with ‘i’ before ‘e,’ or something along those lines.

I’m weaving together poems and plans each day this month. In this post: a lesson plan based on poetry, a NaPoWriMo response, and a little extra with some interesting words for you!

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Imagery in Action: Painting Pictures with Words

🍲 Lesson Plan: Picture This! Exploring Imagery in Poetry

Grade Level: 3rd–5th
Time: 45–60 minutes
Subjects: ELA, Art

🎯 Objective

Students will explore imagery in poetry, using sensory details to craft vivid, sensory-rich poems.

🔗 Connections

• Learning: Builds descriptive language and observation skills.
• Poetry: Helps students appreciate how poets create mood and meaning.
• Books:
  • If You Were a Chocolate Mustache by J. Patrick Lewis and illustrated by Matthew Cordell 
  • Every Second Something Happens: Poems for the Mind and Senses compiled by Christine San José and Bill Johnson with illustrations by Melanie Hall 
  • Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices by Paul Fleischman
  • Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature by Nicola Davies
  • Weather: Poems for All Seasons selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins
  • Firefly July: A Year of Very Short Poems selected by Paul B. Janeczko
  • The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes by Leroy Jackson
  • and many many more….(by Pat Mora, Jack Prelutsky, Shel Silverstein)

📚 Materials Needed

• Poetry books/poems rich in sensory and imagery details (select any from the list above, or one of your choice)
  • Nikki Grimes’ On Quiet Feet
• Whiteboard/blackboard
• Markers/chalk
• Writing paper and pencils
• A box full of sensory items

📚 Lesson Details (45–50 min)

🌅 What is Imagery? (5 minutes)

• Definition: Imagery is when words create pictures in our minds using the 5 senses.
  • Emphasize that good imagery makes the reader feel like they are experiencing what the poet describes.
• Example: Read a short poem (e.g., Shel Silverstein’s Hug O’ War) and ask, “What do you see, hear, or feel?”
• Discussion: Highlight sensory words and how they bring the poem to life.

Sensory Exploration (10 minutes)👃👂🖐️👀👄

• Activity: Pass around a mystery box with sensory items (e.g., orange, fabric, flower).
• Task: Have students describe what they feel, smell, taste, and see, then write their sensory words on the “Imagery Worksheet.”
• Examples:
  • Sight: “The bright yellow of sunflower petals.”
  • Sound: “Leaves rustling in the wind.”
  • Taste: “Chocolate melting on my tongue.”
  • Touch: “Soft rose petals.”
  • Smell: “Fresh rain-soaked earth”

Group Activity: Imagery Word Wall (15 minutes)📝

• Build a “sensory word bank” that students can refer to while writing.
  • Sight: bright, shimmering, foggy
  • Sound: crashing, whispering, buzzing
  • Smell: fragrant, pungent, fresh
  • Taste: sour, spicy, tangy
  • Touch: rough, smooth, sticky

✍️ Writing Poetry with Imagery (15 minutes)

• Task: Students write a 4-line poem about a favorite place, food, or experience using at least three senses.
  • Ask students to pick an object, place, or experience they want to describe (e.g., a favorite place, a family pet, a fun activity).
  • Remind them to use their worksheet and word wall for reference and inspiration
• Optional: Add a quick sketch!
• Prompts:
  • Describe a trip to the beach.
  • Write about your favorite food.
  • Describe a visit to the zoo.
• Tip: Focus on vivid language—your poem doesn’t need to rhyme, just paint a clear picture.

🗣️ Poetry Sharing & Reflection (10 minutes)

• Sharing: Students volunteer to share their poems. Classmates describe the sensory experience they imagined.
  • Optional: 🕵️‍♂️Play “Guess the Sense!”—others guess which senses were used.❓
• Reflection: Discuss how imagery made their poems more powerful.

🧩 Extensions/Adaptations

• K-2 Adaptation:
  Use simple picture books with vivid sensory details and focus on two senses (e.g., sight and touch). Have students create short sensory sentences or drawings to describe a favorite object or food.
• 6-8 Adaptation:
  Encourage students to analyze how sensory imagery enhances mood and meaning in poems, using more complex figurative language. Have them write longer poems (6-8 lines) incorporating all five senses, experimenting with tone and emotion.

Irony, Illustrated…

…in the Write Wrongs!

Mark Bibbins’ poem, “At the End of the Endless Decade,” uses sound very differently, with less eerieness and more wordplay. Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt challenges us to write a poem that, like Bibbins’, uses alliteration and punning. And if possible, work in references to at least one word we have trouble spelling, and one that we’ve never quite been able to perfectly remember the meaning of.

So here is

My Attempt

The Ire(ony) in I Before E
I sure can be a merciless mistress of spelling,
A tyrant with tests, the Tyrannosaur of Telling.
There, their, they’re—I will hurl like confetti,
But don’t dare ask me to spell “definitely.”

I’ll toss out accommodate twice in a week,
Slip in miniscule just to make my quiz squeak.
Embarrass—with double R, double S,
But misspell it myself? A “miss”-mess?

So I do hope that those students of mine
Do not revert with a tone so fine
And ask me to spell a word or two anywhen
From that quiz I gave them, just last Tuesday at ten…

What if they ask, with bright eyes and keen elocution,
How to fix their faltering pronunciation?
And worse—if they toss me conscientious,
A word confounding and a bit pretentious(?)

What if they ask me, sweetly, all wide-eyed and spry,
“What’s nonplussed mean now?” miss—
I might then misdefine risible, fake comprehension,
And pretend conscientious is just… dedication?

No chocolate, no cuppa, no scone or Earl Grey,
Can enervate me—or wait, is it the other way?
So maybe, just maybe, i should be kinder, more sage
Or just slip ‘conscience‘ in—and quietly fudge the grade.
~ Vidya Tiru @ LadyInReadWrites

Notes:

• Miniscule is misspelled in the poem (and here). Apparently, this wrong spelling is used so often that it sometimes escapes scrutiny – like in my case, autocorrect skipped this word, but corrected embarrass when I misspelled it (again) while writing the poem!
• I am not a teacher (yet?) but if I am ever a teacher, I can see myself like I pictured above.

Interesting ‘I’ Words

(for Thursday 13 where I pop in every once in a while)

1. Idioglossia – Private language developed between children.
2. Ignavia – A cooler (?) way of saying laziness.
3. Inaniloquent – Speaking foolishly or saying silly things.
4. Indelible – Impossible to remove or forget.
5. Ineffable – So amazing it’s beyond words.
6. Inkling – A tiny hint of suspicion.
7. Iota – A teeny tiny amount.
8. Ideogeny – The study of origins of ideas.
9. Ianthine – A pale, violet color.
10. Iracund – Easily angered or irritable.
11. Inusitation – The act of being used or habituated to something.
12. Illaborate – Carelessly done.
13. Inumbrate – To put in shadow.

inkling and iota made their way into the list because i love to use them 🙂

And Now, the End of This Post

Dear reader, will you attempt to write a poem rich with imagery? Do share your poem when you write it! And which book would you pick to read first – from all the ones listed today?

I am linking up to A-Z, Blogchatter, UBC, NaPoWriMo.

And you can find all my A-Z posts (this year and previous years’ as well) here:

A to Z Challenge Posts