teaching kids, hmmm

depends on their age. young kids have the shortest attention span and anymore than 5 mins on one thing theyll lose interest. my experience is all from teaching english, but you could try combining the teaching with other activities, like dancing, moving round in a pattern to practice footwork, back to poi... you could do a game with a single sock poi, like they throw it to someone, that person has to spin the poi in a circle somewhere round their body and then throw it to someone else. when someone drops it they have to kneel down and spin a circle. if they drop it again they have to lie down. get them into the different plains. it helps if you make the mistakes and then they get to laught at you.

you could incorporate some sort of vocal aspect to it, that i cant think of, but word association or somethiing. or get them to describe where they do the circle (behind the head, in front, behind, clockwise, anticlockwise. obviously doesnt have to be all those terms in case they get confused) and then the next person has to spin the poi somewhere else.

kids love praise, and treats for getting things right. you need loads of activities, and with poi theres so much like movement, turning, spinning, rotating your arms. you could try giving commands like 'windmill' and they all have to spin their arms like a windmill, in a kind of 'flowers' way. with or without poi... you dont want them hitting themselves

kids will be interested if its fun. they probably dont care about the technical aspects of poi, but if you make it a right laugh, they should come back.
good luck