Kids Poetry Basketball is designed for kids ages 4-13. Kids learn about poetry, reading, grammar, proper formation of sentences and more while playing basketball games, thus enhancing their literacy skills. The aim of Kids Poetry Basketball is to:

• Teach young people the many forms of expression that are articulated through poetry, including music, written words, spoken words, art and dance.

• Help develop kids' public speaking skills

• Improve youth literacy and reading comprehension

• Increase student Benchmark scores

Kids Poetry Basketball is designed as a learning "obstacle course" and consists of the following activities:

MAKE IT AND TAKE IT - Kids from team metaphor and team simile are expected to dribble the basketball to a letter and shoot next to a letter.  When a shot is successfully made they can pick up a letter.  The first team to pick up all of their letters wins that part of the game.  When all of the letters are earned by both teams they are taken over to the Poetry Word Board to make words. The words are then used to make a complete sentence.  Kids are given connective words such as "is", "a", and "I".  Kids then read their sentences to the audience.  The crowd cheers building children's self-esteem.


POEM DRIBBLING MAZE - Kids learn to stay focused on the task at hand by dribbling a basketball from one hand to the other while a volunteer picks up poetry words as each kid goes through the maze.



SHOOTING WORD CHALLENGE - Kids are expected to shoot the basketball to the hoop while standing next to where there are poetry words. When a shot is successfully made, a volunteer will pick up the word from each successful shot. All of the words earned from the Poem Dribbling Maze and Shooting Word Challenge are then taken over to the Poetry Word Board. The words are then used to make a complete sentence. Kids are given connective words such as "is," "a," "and," "&" and "I"). Kids then read their sentences to the audience. The crowd cheers, building children's self-esteem.


KIDS POETRY BASKETBALL GAME - This activity consist of two teams (Team Metaphor and Team Simile). Each team has 10 minutes to spell out poetry words such as "Tone," "Form," "Haiku" and "Lyric". The first team to spell out their poetry word with each shot made is the winning team.





The mission of Kids Poetry Basketball is to help youth ages 4-13 develop creative and critical thinking skills and enhance literacy through the use of poetry and athletics to build self-esteem and self-awareness. Our goal is to also encourage kids to live a healthy lifestyle through physical play and healthy eating to combat childhood obesity.