Earlier this week a reader emailed me looking for an alternative to Read Write Think’s old Word Mover activity which is no longer available because of the deprecation of Flash. Word Mover was essentially an online version of the old refrigerator word magnets that were popular in the 90’s. While the producers of Magnetic Poetry do offer an online version, it’s not well-suited to classroom use. My suggestion is to try using Google Jamboard and Google Classroom to create a “magnetic poetry” for your students. 

On Google Jamboard you can create a set of sticky notes with words on them. You could color code the sticky notes to make verbs one color, adjectives another color, and nouns a third color. Once you’ve made your word bank you can then divide the Jamboard and add directions for writing a poem with the words in the word bank. Finally, share your Jamboard as an assignment in Google Classroom. When you share it in Google Classroom make sure that you choose the option of “make a copy for each student” so that students have their own copies to work on without having to manually make copies for themselves. 

In this short video I explain how to use Google Jamboard and Google Classroom to create online magnetic poetry assignments for your students.