Intended for elementary school language arts and reading teachers, this paper presents classroom activities using poetry to encourage divergent thinking and to give children the chance to play with language and to practice English language conventions in order to be effective readers and writers. The 12 activities are (1) combining poetry and prose; (2) starting a personal poetry file based on one's own interest and curriculum; (3) selecting concrete poetry for bulletin boards and visual displays; (4) accompanying poetry with illustrations, music or sound, and pantomime; (5) presenting poetry through student-made filmstrips and slides; (6) choral reading; (7) generating formula poems; (8) paraphrasing famous poems; (9) collecting words and arranging them; (10) making the inanimate animate; (11) generating common forms, such as haiku and limerick; and (12) alliterating phrases with first names. (HTH)