Jun 22, 20212 min read

Expressing Gratitude: How To Write a Thank a Teacher Poem for Kids

Updated: Oct 30

After writing, "What Have the Teachers Ever Done for Us?" I thought I could use it as a model to inspire my Year 6 class to write their own Thank a Teacher poem for kids to celebrate National Thank A Teacher day, UK, on June 23rd.

The timing seemed doubly perfect as this fabulous group of children are ready to reflect on all they have loved and learned at primary school, before striding onwards into the wider world. #ThankaTeacherUK https://thankateacher.co.uk/

I have included the lesson slides and notes below, so maybe you could write a Thank A Teacher poem for kids with your class tomorrow, or any time for that matter.

Firstly, we shared my original thank a teacher poem and simply enjoyed reading it aloud a couple of times. Then, we explored the structure, meaning and themes of each stanza. The children highlighted the verbs that told us what inspiring things the teachers had done in the poem.

What Have The Teachers Ever Done For Us poem — Thank A Teacher Poem Model

After that, the children made notes of all the brilliant memories they had of their teachers since they were in Nursery. They loved laughing about times gone by. You're never too young for #Nostalgia.

Children's mind map of teacher memories — Thank A Teacher Poem brainstorm

We then used their ideas to create some line openers for our stanzas. We decided, each line could start with a verb or every other line at least. We also agreed on the two lines that could start our poems and unlike the original, each one didn't have to be posed as a question.

As you'll see from the children's final pieces, many deviated, some didn't. I loved that the class had the confidence to go their own way, or as it says in the original poem, ski their own (poetry) slope!