EASTER ACROSTIC POEM

Here's an activity related to Holy Week leading up to Easter.  It's an idea I borrowed from the British Council website, and it worked quite well with a group of restless junior high school students. 
They love to do projects.  A good way to get them involved is to incorporate their creative skills such as drawing, colouring, decorating, singing, acting, even sculpting.  For this project I allowed them to spend two entire lessons drawing, colouring and decorating A5 sheets of construction paper with an EASTER theme.  You can suggest ideas and of course teach the relevant vocabulary: the Easter Bunny, Easter egg, decorating eggs, Easter egg hunt, chocolate eggs, Easter basket, hot cross buns, a Christian holiday, Lent, fasting, Easter Sunday Mass, etc. 

Prior to this we had spent a lesson discussing the relevant vocabulary and writing an Easter acrostic poem.  It then became the central part of the Easter themed drawings.

Here is how to plan the acrostic poem. Write the letters of the word down the left-hand side of the board:
E

A

S

T

E

R

You can leave a line between letters to give students the chance to experiment with words before writing the poem.

Brainstorm, as a group, words that begin with these letters and are related to the holiday.  It's a good opportunity to use a thesaurus.  I always encourage students to refer to a dictionary when necessary.  Once you have a good list start thinking about writing the poem. 

Give them time to work in pairs or individually.  When ready, choose a few to read out loud for the class.  Write an example on the whiteboard.

Finally, we organised an exhibition and decorated the classroom with their illustrated EASTER ACROSTIC POEMS.
  
You can even have a vote on the best poem, or the project that gives the best visual and mental image for the Easter holiday.  It's up to you.

Here are some ideas you could use:

E aster Day is in
A pril this year
S pring is here
T ime for holidays and
E gg hunts with
R abbits and hot cross buns

Click on the link for the original British Council activity and much more.