Sibling Fun Fridays
Welcome to our new blog series - Sibling Fun Fridays! These blogs will consist of biweekly activity ideas for siblings to spend some time together without having to prep anything big.
In each blog, we will provide a simple tutorial of the game as well as a Sibling Society gamesheet if necessary. You can download the PDF version to have a physical copy, or access it online.
Writing Poetry
You're a poet, and you didn't even know it!
Poetry isn’t just about following lots of boring rules. It can be a fun way to share your thoughts with other people, learn new words, and be creative!
What You Need
- At least one sibling, friend, or family member
- One pen or pencil per person
- One blank sheet of paper per person
Name Acrostics
An acrostic is a type of poem where the first letter of each word in the poem makes a special word. In a name acrostic, that special word is the name of your sibling, friend, or family member.
Start by choosing who you want to write about. If there’s only two of you, that makes it easy—you can just write about each other! Write the person’s name on your paper, with one letter on each line. Let’s say my sibling’s name is Amy. I would write:
A
M
Y
Next, it’s time to pick what each of these letters stand for. Try to find words that describe the person or things that the person likes. You can be as silly as you like! For Amy, I might write:
A is for Amazing!
M is for Music
Y is for Yummy food
And there you go! You just wrote an acrostic poem. Now try writing about something or someone else!
For poets who might find it hard to think of words by themselves, try working together! Write an acrostic poem for a parent, teacher, or favourite nurse. Share it with them if you want—poetry makes a lovely gift.
💡 Sibling Tips
thesaurus.com is my favourite place to look when I need help thinking of words that start with the letter I need. Just search for a word you like, and it’ll show you other words that mean the same thing, but starting with different letters.
Here are some extra examples of name acrostics written by Sibling Society’s volunteers and their siblings!
Exquisite Corpse Rhymes
An exquisite corpse (ex-QUIZ-it cor-ps) is a kind of art where artists work together without a plan. In exquisite corpse poetry, poets take turns writing without knowing what others wrote before them.
Start by deciding on a topic. Poems can be about anything, so be as funny or serious as you like. Next, pick a person to start. This person writes the first line of the poem on their paper. For my poem, I’m going to write about my dog:
My dog is big and black and white
Now, I’ll tell my sibling the last word of my line (“white”), so they know what their line needs to rhyme with. Keep the rest of your line a secret! This is what makes exquisite corpse poems a little bit weird. My sibling writes a rhyming line on their paper:
Dogs don’t know how to write
The next person picks a new rhyme and writes a new line. Since I’m only writing with one friend, that means it’s my turn again:
He likes to sleep all day
And now I tell my sibling the last word of my line again (“day”), and they write another rhyming line:
I like it when we play!
You can keep going for as long as you want. But I think my poem is long enough—which means it’s time to put it together!
My dog is big and black and white
Dogs don’t know how to write
He likes to sleep all day
I like it when we play!
Great job with your exquisite corpse poem! Try writing another one about something else. Make sure to switch up who writes the first line, so that every poet gets a chance to pick the rhyming words!
💡 Sibling Tips
rhymezone.com is my best friend when I need help finding rhyming words. It’s not cheating, because writing poetry with a friend isn’t a competition!
If thinking of rhymes is too hard, don’t worry! Poems don’t need to rhyme. Or, if rhyming is too easy, try looking up different kinds of poetry and following their rhyme schemes. I suggest starting with a limerick!
To give you some more inspiration, our volunteers and their siblings came up with these exquisite corpse poems too. They really can be about anything!
