April is National Poetry Month and I am here for it! Poetry is something that is not typically embedded in the curriculum all year long, yet exploring poetry with your class provides numerous learning opportunities. It opens the door to new reading and writing experiences that your students may have not tried out before. The more exposure that you and your students have to poetry, the better. If you feel like teaching poetry is scary, it doesn’t have to be!   As you may be able to tell, I love poetry so much! Through my experiences I have found that giving my students intentional exposure to poetry helped so much when it came to state testing. While test prep is always a good thing, there are many other benefits as well. Poetry is meant to be creative and exploratory, so have a little fun with it!   In this episode I share: 5 simple tips for teaching poetry The many benefits of teaching poetry Various ways you can incorporate poetry in your classroom daily Suggestions of famous poets to explore Key features of poetry to teach such as metaphors, similes, line breaks, and repetition My favorite common forms of poetry    Resources mentioned in the episode: Sign up for a poem-a-day: https://poets.org/poem-a-day Poetry Month Reading and Writing Activities    Connect with me: TpT Store Join The Literacy Dive Facebook group! Instagram Blog Facebook Page YouTube   For full show notes, head to misspsstyle.com/podcast-episode25