Elements of Poetry: Teaching Kids to Love Reading and Writing and Thinking!

Stanzas:Stanzas are  lines grouped together and broken up by an empty line from other stanzas.  One way to identify a stanza is to count the number of lines: 

• couplet (2 lines)
• tercet (3 lines)
• quatrain (4 lines)
• cinquain (5 lines)
• sestet (6 lines)
• septet (7 lines)
• octave (8 lines)

 
Rhyme:

• End Rhyme
• Internal Rhyme
• Slant Rhyme

 
Alliteration:The repetition of initial sounds on the same line or stanza - Big boring Bob bumped bravely.

Assonance:The repetition of vowel sounds.  The famous How Now Brown Cow

Consonance: The repetition of consonant sounds. For example, " And all the air a solemn stillness holds. "(T. Gray)

Onomatopoeia: Words that sound like that which they describe - Whoosh! Snap!Boom! Crash! Pow! Quack! Moo! Caress...

Parallel Structure:A form of repetition where the order of verbs and nouns is repeated; it may involve exact words, but it more importantly repeats sentence structure - "I came, I saw, I conquered".
 
Simile:The rhetorical device used to designate resemblances. Most similes are introduced by "like" or "as." These comparisons are usually between dissimilar situations or objects that have something in common, such as "My love is like a red, red rose."

Metaphor:A metaphor leaves out "like" or "as" and implies a direct comparison between objects or situations. "All flesh is grass." 

Synecdoche:A form of metaphor, which in mentioning an important (and attached) part signifies the whole (e.g. "hands" for labor).

Metonymy:A form of metaphor allowing an object associated (but unattached) with an object or situation to stand in for the thing itself (e.g. the crown or throne for a king or the bench for the judicial system).

Symbol:Similar to a simile or metaphor with the first term left out. "My love is like a red, red rose" is a simile. If, through persistent identification of the rose with the beloved woman, we may come to associate the rose with her and her particular virtues. The rose would becomes a symbol.

Allegory:Can be defined as a one-to-one relationship between  abstract ideas and  images presented in the form of  a narrative. For example, George Orwell's Animal Farm is an extended allegory.

Personification:Occurs when you treat abstractions or inanimate objects as human.
 
Note: You may think your young child cannot grasp the bigger elements here, but I guarantee that they can. If that means you need to stretch each element out over a week, then you should do that. Learning poetry will build critical thinking skills and build upon the imagination.