Celebrate Haiku Month in the Classroom

January 30, 2025 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

The other day I learned that February is Haiku Month. Maybe because it’s the shortest month and they are really short poems? I don’t know. In any case it’s a great time to learn about, read and write haiku in the classroom or at home.

Haiku is a traditional Japanese poetry form that usually has nature as its subject, but for kids haiku can be about anything. The main distinction for haiku is the breakdown of syllables per line: 5, then 7, then 5 again.

There are lots of great books about haiku for kids, but one of our favorites is Hi, Koo!, about a panda experiencing the four seasons. Check out this list from Imagination Soup for more good haiku books for kids.

If you want to keep nature the focus of your poems and the weather is cooperating, take your class on a nature walk to discover something to write about. Upper Elementary Snapshots has a printable you can use so kids can take notes on what they see, hear and feel on the walk and then write their poem based on those observations.

Notes from the Portable has another printable students can use for writing their haiku.

Imagine Forest has some great tips for how to write haiku based on traditional forms, including how to structure a haiku as you write it and how to present it on the page.

That Homeschool Family has a good post on haiku including the benefits of writing haiku, and they have a free download for writing spring-themed haiku, complete with lists of spring themed words with one, two, three and four syllables to make writing even easier.

If going outside for inspiration is not an option for you, have kids write and illustrate a haiku about their favorite animal or plant. This activity from Teach Beside Me is really cute and would be super cute to hang in the classroom or hallway.

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Celebrate Poem in Your Pocket Day

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Shark Week Learning for Kids

Shark Week generally happens in July, but any time is a good time to learn more about sharks.

First, start with some fun whale facts like these from Kids Craft Room. Here I learned about the dwarf lantern shark, which is the smallest shark and only grows to about 6-8 inches (about 15-20 cm) long. It also emits light. How cool is that?

Natural Beach Living has some great printable shark information guides, where kids can learn about different kinds of sharks, match the facts to the pictures, or print out doubles and do a shark memory game.

Living Life an Learning has some great shark activity pages including the parts of a shark, types of sharks, a crossword puzzle and more. Also check out their parts of a shark and word scramble download, and a life cycle worksheet.

Learn about how sharks float with this great activity from JDaniel4’s Mom.

Need more facts about sharks? This fact pact from The WOLFe PACK on Teacher Pay Teachers includes fact sheets, a printable flip book, informational text, vocabulary, comprehension questions and more.

Living Montessori Now has a great collection of shark themed activities with a Montessori inspired twist. You’ll find a shark roll and cover, shark phonics and lots more shark activities Deb has collected from all over the Internet.

Remember the “Sharknado” movie? A Few Shortcuts turned the combination of sharks and tornadoes into a fun science activity. You’ll need a bottle connector for this project but otherwise should have everything you need on hand. Use their template to make your sharks out of aluminum foil. So fun!

You can also do some shark themed coloring with these coloring pages from Encouraging Moms at Home. Or make a cool 3D shark with this template from korkotak. And there are tons of different shark crafts collected in this post from Kids Activities Blog.

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