Curiosity and Kindness: Poetry for Projects
On this page, you will find a selection of poetry that can be used as prompts for your Kindness and Curiosity Art Week projects.
Choose a poem that you think will spark rich imagery and imagination in your learners, and then select a project from the bottom of the page to support their creative discovery.
Give space for learners to process information through both sketchbook work and group discussion, prompted by resources and questions below.
Please Note:
This page includes links and videos from external sites, verified at publication but subject to change.
Teachers should review all content for classroom suitability.
Report any issues, and check school firewall settings if videos don’t play.
Step 1: Choose a Poem
Kind Hearts are the Gardens by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Explore the text version of the poem at Words for Life.
Questions to Prompt Discussion
What is this poem about?
Why has the poet chosen a garden as a way to talk about kindness?
Why do you think ‘kind thoughts’ are the roots in a garden?
What does this poem suggest about kindness?
What pictures/colours/shapes do you see in your head when you listen to this poem?
How does this poem make you feel?
What kind thoughts will you plant today?
Questions to Prompt Discussion
What is this poem about?
What does it say about ‘you’?
What do you picture your ‘bright pathway’ to look like or be lit up by?
Where would your map reach to?
What does this poem teach us?
How does this poem make you feel and why?
Miss Flotsam by Joseph Coelho
Explore a written version of Miss Flotsam at The Children’s Poetry Archive
Questions to Prompt Discussion
What is this poem about?
Describe Miss Flotsam.
How does Miss Flotsam show kindness to others?
What is the poet trying to show us when he says Miss Flotsam would turn “fists into begging bowls” or she “placed sandbags around my lies”?
Does Miss Flotsam remind you of anyone you know?
How does this poem make you feel?
If All The World Were Paper by Joseph Coelho
Explore a written version of this poem at The Children’s Poetry Archive
Questions to Prompt Discussion
What is this poem about?
What is in the poets ‘world of paper’?
Why do you think the poet makes his world out of paper and not another material?
Name the different ways he alters his world for people. Why does he do these things?
What feelings can you spot in the poem?
What material would you make your world from?
How does this poem make you feel?
Tips for Exploring Poetry with Learners
Once you have chosen a poem to explore, watch the video with your learners. In sketchbooks, ask them to create some simple visual notes, noting down significant words, images, marks, lines or colours that come to mind as they listen to the poem.
Follow on by discussing the poem with the class, using the questions next to the poem to prompt conversation. Encourage learners to add to their visual notes as they think more deeply about what the words in the poem might represent, and the narratives that begin to emerge.
Throughout the project, learners can refer to these visual notes for additional visual stimulation.
Step 2: Choose a Project
Still and Dynamic Drawings: Making Magic Spells
Explore both observational and experimental drawing, as well as collaborative working, in this project. Here, learners will create a collaborative spell inspired by the chosen poem. They will start with a series of observational drawings before working together to create a dynamic, bubbling pot of kindness.
Adaptations: Collect a variety of objects that represent the ‘ingredients’ in the chosen poem for learners to use when creating their shared magic spell pot.
Set Design with Primary Aged Children
If you’d like to incorporate 3D projects into your art week, this activity allows learners to explores form and narrative through both drawing and making, inspired by visually descriptive lines from the chosen poem.
Adaptation: In the first session, learners will create a mini scene using small toys to inspire drawings that depict a moment of kindness from the poem. In the set building sessions that follow, the descriptive starting point will be taken from the poem.
A Visual Poetry Zine in Monotype
Choose this project to explore painting, collage, drawing and printmaking in your art week. Create zines in response to the chosen poem, inspired by the shapes, colours, lines and text that learners imagine when they listen to and picture the poem.
Adaptation: Choose to print with either ink or carbon paper to suit your setting.
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