A Poetry Teacher's Toolkit
Word morphing
By changing one letter at a time, one word can be 'morphed' into another.
eg. BAT BIT BIN TIN
It's even more fun when the first and last words are connected by meaning:
MUM MUD MAD DAD (My poem Look at MUM shows one way to extend this idea.)
For more able children, you might set these as puzzles. Can you change SAD into CRY?
SAD SAY DAY DRY CRY
Here, 'SAY' to 'DAY' is a 'sideways' move, but sometimes that's necessary.
3-letter word chains are easiest, but some children might take it further.
TOAD TOLD BOLD BOND POND
Build up word banks of 3 and 4-letter words for children to refer to. How about:
WATER LATER LAGER
See Volume 1 'Words and Wordplay', Chapter 3 'Weighing with Plurds' for more about turning word morphs into poems.