Riddle-ku Roundup!

National Poetry Month was so fun! I thought it might be helpful if I posted one page with links to all the riddle-ku, so that if you’re new to them entirely or if you want to return here and use them again, you can use this master list. Since they don’t have titles, other than the answers to the riddles, I decided to just use the first line of each one.

And if you’re an educator, then at the bottom of the post you’ll find my tips for sharing these poems with students.

I’m a metal snake

I’m a pencil crop

This merry-go-round

I am wrapped-up sun

I wave like a flag

I sail the sky-sea

I’m a secret wand

I’m over your head

I chase dirt all day

Alone, I drift down

My halves–soft and rough?

I’m a sleep launchpad

I connect hand to dog

I’m a vast jungle

I grow when sun’s low,

My yellow explodes

Suck up! Make me a

I don’t see faces

Without me, a door

I hold cold inside

When I’m up, light rules

I’m a water slide

I feel you watch me,

Oh, no! Don’t shoot me!

Big drum, wooden, waxed

I’m the mountain’s crumb

I dive into milk

I’m smarter than you

My tail whisks my nose

I squeeze through the hole

Mountain has a mouth? (this one is a bonus–it was the sneak-peek sample)

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UPDATE: My riddle-ku are now available in Kindle and paperback as Riddle-ku: Haiku for Very Close Reading (along with tons of great auxiliary materials for teachers), part of the 30 PAINLESS CLASSROOM POEMS series.

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Hi Educators,

For National Poetry Month 2014, I did?riddle-ku, which I’made up to be mask poems (poems written from the point of view of objects or animals) written in the very traditional 5–7‑5 syllable count of haiku. (Or senryu, which follow the count of haiku but are about things or people instead of nature.) And the idea is that students try to guess who or what has ?written? the poem. You can see my sneak peek sample here. These riddle-ku would make a great way to share a poem with your students every day. It is totally fine to just read them and make guesses for enjoyment! You don’t need to do anything more than that! If you’d like to extend your discussion a bit, both to help students start to gain a better understanding of poetry and/or to meet your ELA standards,?here are some things you could ask about after kids guess the answer (with or without the help of the photo clues):

• Were there any words you didn’t know the meaning of? Then discuss the meaning.
• Which words or phrases gave the answer away?
• Did you like this riddle-ku? Why or why not? All answers are valid!
• Haiku don’t rhyme, but sometimes poets sneak rhyming words into all sorts of non-rhyming poems. Did you notice any rhyming words here?
• Did this poem remind you of anything from your own life?
• Traditional haiku are about nature and refer to the season. Were there any words here to tell you what season it might be?
• Metaphors in haiku are controversial. Some poets use them, and some say they don’t belong in haiku. Almost every one of these riddle-ku uses a metaphor or simile to compare two unlike things. Did you hear two things being compared in this poem? What were they? What else could you compare [one of the two things] to?

Besides discussing the poems, you could:

• Have kids write their own riddle poems, either in haiku or not. They could exchange poems or you could create a riddle display for the rest of the school to guess.
• Find another poem on the same topic to share and compare/contrast.
• Invite a volunteer to perform each day’s poem, perhaps adding hand or body motions to give further clues.
• Let students create riddle art, where they draw (or take a photo of) a super-close-up of an object for other people to guess.

I hope you have as much fun reading these riddle-ku as I did writing them! I’d love to hear from you about what worked well?in your classroom or library, and I’d love to see any photos you’d care to share!

Thanks for sharing poetry with your students.

Cheers, Laura