Introduce your first graders to poetry by discussing how poetry was used to tell history before books were printed, how poetry was used as a form of entertainment before CDs and MP3 players were commonplace, and how poetry was used to teach valuable lessons before schools and classrooms existed.
Implement a "poem a day" program by choosing a new poem each day and reading it aloud to your first graders at the beginning of class. Poems can be chosen to fit a particular lesson, classroom theme or to introduce or focus on a particular word or grammatical composition. Post each day's poem on a classroom bulletin board so that students can review it at their leisure.
Lead your first graders on walks around the classroom, around the school, or around the school grounds and ask them to write a poem detailing an object that they see. The objects they choose to describe can be a tree, a piece of playground equipment, a window, a chalkboard or anything else that strikes their fancy.
Bring props to class and ask your first graders to describe them using poetry or use them to help illustrate a poem read in class. The props can be anything from a hat to classroom mascot (a pet).
Instruct your first graders to close their eyes as they listen to a piece of music. Have them draw an image depicting the events of the song. Afterward, challenge the students to write a poem based on their drawings.
Diversify your poetry lessons by introducing a variety of simple poem formats to your first graders. Some common formats include acrostic poems, in which students use the letters of their name for each line; cinquain poems, in which the number of syllables varies on each line; and repetitive poems, in which one word is repeated every other line. Alternatively, students can focus on the five "W's" (who, what, when, where, why), adjectives, adjectives and nouns or simple rhymes.