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their catchy rhymes and rhythms.
Here’s a quick example:
Bear in ere
ere’s a Polar Bear
In our Frigidaire —
He likes it ‘cause it’s cold in there.
With his seat in the meat
And his face in the sh
And his big hairy paws
In the buttery dish,
He’s nibbling the noodles,
He’s munching the rice,
He’s slurping the soda,
He’s licking the ice.
And he lets out a roar
If you open the door.
And it gives me a scare
To know he’s in there —
at Polary Bear
In our Fridgitydaire.
ere are plenty of wonderful poems
and nursery rhymes to choose from,
including Mother Goose nursery rhymes,
Jack Prelusky’s For Laughing Out Loud:
Poems to Tickle Your Funnybone, and
Deborah Chandra’s Balloons and Other
Poems. Ask the children the following
questions: Listen to the sounds carefully.
What sounds do you like? What pictures
come to mind when you hear the poem? How
does the poem make you feel? en gather
everyone up to dance to and pantomime a
familiar poem as you recite it together.
Writing with poetry
Teachers can write poetry with their class
as a shared writing activity. Create a poem
by making a list of things for which the
children are thankful. For example…
I am thankful for…
My mom
Because she loves me so much.
School
Because you learn a lot.
My grandpa
Because he spoils me.
CHILDREN AND FAMILIES Back-to-School 2008
Common poetry terms
Acrostics: a poem or series of lines in
which certain letters, usually the rst in
each line, form a word. The following is
an example using the word summer:
Sunshine pours through
Under my window shade
Morning is here
My mother whispers softly
Eager to rise
Relishing the day
Alliteration: The repetition of the
same or similar sounds at the beginning
of words, for example, Peter Piper
picked a peck of pickled peppers.
Couplet: a pair of lines that works as a
unit, usually rhymes, and forms a complete
thought.
Epic: a long, serious poem that tells the
story of heroic gures, for example, The
Iliad and The Odyssey, by Homer.
Free verse: a verse that does not follow
a xed metrical pattern.
Haiku: a type of Japanese poetry that
when written in English contains 17
syllables, ve syllables in the rst line,
seven in the second line, and ve in the
third line.
You can also try writing a sound
poem. Have the children answer several
questions about the sounds they hear.
Here are a few sample questions:
• Can you describe the sound?
• What does the sound make you think of?
• How do you feel when you hear the
sound?
Roll, boom
Swish, swish, boom
Swishing wind roars
Shaking the leaves and trees
Glad I am inside my warm house.
Poetry has the wonderful ability to
capture the imagination and attention of
young children with its interesting and
lyrical use of words, rhymes, and imagery.
To a child’s great delight, poetry — whether
Limerick: a humorous poem that is ve
lines long. Usually the rst, second, and last
lines have the same rhyme, while the third
and fourth rhyme.
Meter: the basic rhythmic structure of a
verse.
Onomatopoeia: a word or group of words
that imitates the sound it is describing,
such as buzz, meow, and gulp.
Stanza: a unit within a poem that consists
of an arrangement of a certain number of
lines, usually four or more, that often has a
xed length, meter, or rhyme scheme.
Verse: a line of a poem.
References
A Child’s Garden of Verses, Robert
Louis Stevenson (Charles Scribner’s
Sons, 1905).
Joyful Learning in Kindergarten,
Revised edition, by Bobbi Fisher
(Heinemann, 1998).
My toes are getting wrinkled,
M. Cunningham (Unpublished,
1973).
You Are My Sunshine (song),
by Davis, J. & Mitchell, C. (1931).
Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Shel
Silverstein, S. (Harper & Row
Publishers, 1974).
it’s about wrinkled toes, a sky that’s clear
and blue, or a polar bear in your Frigidaire
— will make learning about sounds and
language fun!
Melissa Stinnett, Ed.D., is assistant professor of
reading at Western Illinois University in the Department
of Curriculum and Instruction where
she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses.
She serves as governmental relations chair for
Western Illinois Reading Council. Stinnett has a
wealth of experience with early literacy instruction
and Reading Recovery and has taught
kindergarten, rst, and second grades. She is a
frequent presenter at state and national literacy
conferences.
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