Have you ever tried to occupy children, maybe on school holidays, or on a rainy day? What about getting them to write poems?
First of all get them to read some poems to you. If they are very young maybe you could read to them. Children want poems that relate to their worlds like family, pets, school, games, food, friends. They like a good story, strong rhymes and repetition.
Capture their interest with some humorous lines. For instance, in his book Poem in the Making the poet Ted Hughes speaks about an imaginary brother, Bert, and begins his poem in a conversational way.