Nonsense Poems Teacher Resources

Primary learners are introduced to Lewis Carroll's whimsical poetry. They read "The Nursery Alice" Carroll's adaptation for younger readers, view story illustrations, listen to poetry and write whimsical verses of their own about food.

Students recognize poetic devices including rhyme, syllabification, and meter. They identify the characteristics of a nonsense poem and of a limerick. They write their own limericks.

Introduce your class to the delights of nonsense poetry and explore literary devices with the writing of Edward Lear. Learners identify rhyme and meter as well as figures of speech, alliteration, and onomatopoeia in "The Owl and the...

Make some sense out of Lewis Carroll's famous nonsense poem "Jabberwocky." After reading through the poem, introduce the word portmanteau and send small groups off to alter the original poem. 

Readers demonstrate their ability to use word endings and word relationships to identify the parts of speech of the nonsense words in Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky."

Students explore limericks. In this poetry writing lesson, students listen to and read a variety of poems written by Edward Lear. Students count syllables and identify meter by clapping as they read aloud. Students complete a limerick...

For this rhyming verse worksheet, students read 20 words in a chart and color them according to the directions, using a different color for each ending rhyme pattern. Students then answer 10 questions in which they write simple nonsense...

Who would ever think to go to sea in a sieve? Only Edward Lear's Jumblies! The poem "The Jumblies" is the inspiration for these poetry reading and writing activities that ask learners to think about how strangers are different, consider...

In this rhyming words worksheet, students complete four activities that help them learn rhyming words containing 'ap.' Students color words that rhyme with cap, pair the rhyming words, make silly sentence with the words and a nonsense poem.

Provide pupils samples of different types of poems including haikus, narrative, nonsense, shape, and rhyming poems. In groups, class members read the poems, establish their general meaning, identify poetic devices, and rate the poems,...

There may be some little lambs, itsy bitsy spiders, and pumpkin eaters in your language arts class! An online poetry lesson takes learners through the steps of writing a nursery rhyme with easy-to-follow steps and explanatory examples.

Students experience and enjoy the sounds of poetry. They erform sound experiments with sonnets and closely read and analyze a sonnet by Shakespeare. Students write an analysis of how sound affects meaning in a sonnet chosen from the...

Second graders read the poem, "Betty Botter" and give their opinion of it. They discover what a tongue twister is and read the poem out loud together. Then as a class they read "Peter Piper" and discuss the similarities of the two poems.

Students participate in a lesson that covers the genre of narrative poetry. They examine the elements of a narrative poem while focusing upon the characterization. Students compare and contrast the characters while analyzing their...

Students make flip books of rhyming words and match words together that are on cards. In this rhyming lesson plan, students read books and read individual words to identify rhyming words.

This is an online photocopy of the original text of the children's book More Nonsense by Edward Lear (1888), a book of illustrated nonsense limerick poems.

Part 2 of this tutorial on limerick writing demonstrates the importance of form (meter and rhyme) in limerick poetry using the exemplary and amusing work of Edward Lear.

Lewis Carroll's popular nonsense poem, Jabberwocky, has been frequently parodied, and often translated. This site could be useful in teaching parody and spoofing.

Calling itself "unique," Bob's is easy to use, with cross-links throughout, phonetic pronunciation guides when necessary, and many examples and quotations. Click on the letter and scroll for the word.

Defines limericks and shows an example.