Decide what poems you want to use. You can use nursery rhymes, funny poems or haiku. Or, you can focus on one type of poem a week and use them all.
Create traceable poems by writing a poem on a piece of manuscript paper. Skip every other line so students have room to re-create the letters themselves after tracing them. This gives them a line to trace and a line to write themselves. It's best to choose short poems so your students don't feel overwhelmed. Use a copy machine to make enough copies for every student in the class.
Use a projector or Smart board to display the poem on the wall. Read the poem with the students. Discuss what's happening in the poem. Tell them they are about to practice tracing over letters in the poem.
Hand out a copy of each poem to the students. This should be the manuscript paper you created. Have your students trace the letters using their pencil. Tell them how to write the letters on the line underneath the one you wrote. Demonstrate this if necessary.
Let them draw pictures of what's happening in the poem. Post their handwriting work on a bulletin board.