Acrostic Poems

28 Pages·2014·26.041 MB·English

by  Lisa M. Bolt Simons,Kathleen Petelinsek

Page intentionally blank
AC ROS T IC
POE M S
B Y L I S A M . B O L T S I M O N S
I L L U S T R A T E D B Y K A T H L E E N P E T E L I N S E K
About the Author
Published by The Child’s World®
1980 Lookout Drive • Mankato, MN 56003-1705 Lisa M. Bolt Simons is a writer
800-599-READ • www.childsworld.com and a teacher. She has published
more than ten books for children.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
She has also been awarded grants
The Child’s World®: Mary Berendes, Publishing Director
and awards for her writing. Besides
Red Line Editorial: Editorial direction
writing, teaching has been her
The Design Lab: Design and production
passion for 20 years. She lives in
Photographs ©: Thinkstock, 7 (left); Fuse/Thinkstock, 7 Minnesota with her husband and
(right); Jose Manuel Gelpi Diaz/Thinkstock, 13; Sebastian boy/girl twin teenagers. Her Web site
Crocker/Shutterstock Images, 18 www.lisamboltsimons.com
is .
Copyright © 2015 by The Child’s World®
About the Illustrator
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
Kathleen Petelinsek is a graphic
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means
without written permission from the publisher. designer and illustrator. She has been
designing and illustrating books for
ISBN 9781631436925 children for 20 years. She lives in
LCCN 2014945435
Minnesota with her husband, two
dogs, a cat, and three fancy chickens.
Printed in the United States of America
Mankato, MN
November, 2014
PA02240
A C R O S T I C P O E M S
TA B L E O F C O N T E N T S
C H A P T E R O N E
What Is a Poem? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4
C H A P T E R T W O
Descriptive Acrostics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
C H A P T E R T H R E E
Story Acrostics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Tips for Young Poets ...............22
Glossary ...........................23
To Learn More .....................24
Index ..............................24
A C R O S T I C P O E M S
P T E R
A O
H
N
C 1 E
What Is a Poem?
Have you sung a song at a birthday
party? Did you know you were singing
a poem? Think about cards people buy
for special occasions. Many cards have
poems inside.
Poems are a special kind of writing.
They have been around for thousands of
years. Poems can be long or short. Some
poems are only a few words. Others are
as long as a book!
4
Several things make poems different
from other kinds of writing. Most
writing uses sentences. But poems use
lines. A sentence has a complete thought.
It also has punctuation. A line doesn’t
have to be a complete thought. Lines also
don’t need punctuation. Sometimes a
whole poem has no punctuation!
5
Poets think very hard about the sounds
the words in their poems make. Sometimes
poets use words that rhyme. Rhyming
words have the same ending sound. The
flower power dog
words and rhyme. So do
frog
and .
p o w e r fro
g
d
o
g
f l o w e r
6
The word mouse has one syllable. Ze-bra has two.
Clap along as you say a word to hear the syllables.
All poems have rhythm. This is the pattern
of sounds in a poem. The syllables in a line help
decide a poem’s rhythm. Syllables are the sounds
that make up a word.
Some syllables are stressed. They are spoken
more strongly. Other syllables are unstressed. They
HOUSE
are spoken more softly. The word has one
BIRD-house
stressed syllable. has two syllables.
The first one is stressed.
7
G
EsmcgieRaontochcedie vaa aillnliyztrd e a atito n
E
C
E
W H AT I S A N A C R O S T I C P O E M ?
Acrostics are one form of poetry. Poets pick a
special word when they write acrostics. Each letter
of the word begins a line of the poem. The lines of
the poem are about that word.
Acrostics have been around for thousands of
years. They were probably first written in ancient
Greece. People used them to share predictions about
future events.
8