SPARKLERS / Mindfulness

Sensory Poetry

A creative writing activity for celebrating the senses.
Connections with the NZ Curriculum and Mental Health Education Guide (learn more)

Why we love it

Encouraging tamariki to think about their senses helps them develop mindfulness skills – namely taking notice and being in the moment.

This activity reminds students how it felt to slow down and use their senses, by giving them the opportunity to write creatively about their Juicy, crispy, crunch experience.

What to do

This activity is an extension of Juicy, crispy, crunch, so once you’ve completed that, ask tamariki to use their worksheet to help write a piece of free writing (or poetry) about the apple.

Having the worksheet as a foundation should help generate ideas, but you could repeat this with any item you like, e.g. a tree in the school grounds, a sunny day, a flower, a friend etc.

Another option is to ask students to do some free writing (no rules) using their senses and one or more of the following story starters.

  • The first piece begins with, I see…
  • The second piece begins with, I hear…
  • The third piece begins with, I am feeling…

We would love to see these poems!

Send them to us and we’ll happily send a thank you and perhaps use them as web or Facebook content.

What next

Try one of our sensory craft activities, like Smiley stress balls.

Big thanks to...

This activity is based around an idea from The Exercise Book edited by Bill Manhire, Ken Duncum, Chris Price and Damien Wilkins. This is a fantastic book to encourage tamariki to write creatively, and, we love it even more because it’s from our very own Aotearoa creative writing experts.

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