Poetry challenge 2013

[seastar]

Inspired by Tamsyn's reading challenge, I'm thinking of doing a poetry challenge - does anyone want to join me? (Safety & motivation from others - a bit like weight watchers but for EL  )

I don't know what would be a good goal though - maybe read a poem a day? Any thoughts?

Also, I'd LOVE some recommendations for poetry books & CDs if you have any favourites 

[Skylark]

I am up for a Poetry Challenge    Great idea!

Let me think about our goal with it and I will share it... Poem a day sounds like a doable goal. We do more then that on some days, but then dont do any for a few days sometime    So it will be nice to have a team to work on the challenge together!

[waterdreamer]

What about different 400 poems From Jan 2013-Dec2013?

This is a great idea! This is something I can do with both my boys. I can't do the book challenge really with my oldest since we are spending 75% of our time on Chapter books.

[MummyRoo]

I was planning a poem a day, so I'm in

I have the yesterdays classics collection and will be using their 3 volume set: A Child's Own Book of Verse. Each book has around 80-100 poems (from my rough count of the contents pages  ) and there are a lot of 'classics'. I also like Poems Every Child Should Know.

We will also be going through silly poems about magic and dinosaurs and whatever else he is especially interested in at the time

[lzp11]

I love the idea of a poetry challenge. Poems cover a fantastic range of vocabulary and ideas to discuss. I'd like to move towards memorising some poems eventually.

I think we could aim for a poem every day. Not sure yet about the repetition issue and whether they will all need to be different to count. I'm also wondering about looking for an audio compilation of poems to listen in the car....

I do love the following collection of poems which were all chosen by children of different ages:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Like-This-Poem-Collection-International/dp/0140312951/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357424451&sr=1-1

[Krista G]

I love this idea.  I have my kids read two poems everyday for school.  Right now we love Jack Prelutsky's I've Lost My Hippopatomus.  The vocabulary that these poems contain is great.  I love the rich vocabulary.  My kids are moving more into chapter books also, so I don't think we will read as many books as we did last year, since they were mostly picture books.  I also like The Llama Who Had No Pajama.  It is a collection by Mary Ann Hoberman.  She has some nice poems.  Then we have the Favorite Poems Old and New.  Wow!  That is a huge book.  It has great poems and will keep you busy for awhile.  We also use the, well I can't tell you what it is called because we wore the cover off and I cannot find the name of it anywhere.  Other wise I would recommend that book too. 

I do not keep track of the poems we read, but I would say it should be easy to do at least one a day, then if you miss a few days it is still easy enough to catch up again.  Since I love the Hippopotamus book so much I am going to share one of my favorite poems from it here.

When

When an orange needs assistance,
Do you give the orange aid?
When you argue with your footwear,
Do you think your shoes are swayed?
When you use no herbs in cooking,
Do you hope you're saving thyme?
When a lemon's green and tiny,
Does it seem a bit sublime?

When an apple joins the army,
Is it in the army corps?
When a hog runs into traffic,
Could it be a crashing boar?
When you grab the wrong potato,
Do you take a different root?
When you're aiming at your laundry,
Are you on a laundry shoot?

When a carton casts a shadow,
Might it be a shadow box?
When you try selecting salmon,
Are you really picking lox?
When a beehive has no honey,
Then where can the honey be?
If you've never seen the ocean,
Do you have to go to sea?

When you waltz on glowing embers,
Do you dance on daring feet?
When you need to eat a turnip,
Do you get to skip a beet?
When there's trouble at the circus,
Does it make the circus tense?
When your pocket's out of pennies,
Are you lacking common cents?

[Skylark]

Krista, we also like The Llama Who Had No Pajama 

For those of you who do, you would enjoy this video!

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/video/197

In general we get a lot from The Poetry Foundation, so check them out.

[Krista G]

Hey Skylark,

Thanks for the link.  One of my favorite books is also by Mary Ann Hoberman.  Have you read A House is a House for Me?  Such a clever book.  I love it.  It really encourages interaction as you continue discovering houses for things with your kids.  I like hearing her stories behind the poems.  Thanks a lot.

[bella]

One of my new year resolutions is reading more poetry . We read a lot with my first and second child , I made sure to read poems every day , but lately we are hooked on chapter books and forgot about poems . No problem for my six years old , she reached to the bookshelf and took a poem book and started reading on her own . She said mama i remember this book you used to read it to me when i was a baby . i felt bad that i never read it for her younger brother . many things i didn't have a chance to do with him . many of our pictures books are forgotten on the shelf so i decided we will make sure to read poems this year , one poem a day is an easy goal , but i wonder if we should not make one poem a week and reread it ??? what do you think to encourage memorization ?? I started by looking through the house collecting all our poetry books and make a poetry section on our shelves , i was amazed how many books i have , i will try to post some titles we really love .
xxx
viv

[Skylark]

Krista, A House is a House for Me, Brother and All kind of Families ( http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/video/191) are my daughter's favorite at the moment    What I like about her poems --  rich vocabulary and rhythm. It was also fun to hear the stories behind the poems, that she is telling.

OK, now that I got inspired about our Poetry challenge, I decided to keep a track of poems we read on our newly created blog  (I've never done a blog before, but it is a New Year and I got to try something new, so don't judge me too harshly  )

Our "guidelines" will be simple --

- We will read at least 1 new poem a day
- We will repeat reading some of them of course, but I would not have a strict system in place for that
- I will give some additional information about each daily poem to my children (EK style facts, little talk about style, era, writer or an event)

We will record our Poetry Challenge here -- http://earlyeducationessentials.com/seven-reason-to-read-poems-with-children-and-our-new-year-poetry-challenge/. Some of the reasons I’ve decided to do it this way — accountability  , ease of review, being able to use these poems and facts about them again with our youngest later and may be it will help someone else with some of the ideas. Comments and suggestions are welcome!!

I will also try to put a few fun/informational facts about the poems we read along with each poem.

[Mandabplus3]

Skylark, you are the only harsh citic of your blogg on this forum    We will all love it!
a poem a day sounds great. I can manage that.
I agree poetry has a place as the vocabulary is extensive even in the smaller and simpler poems. My children enjoy rhyme so I shall hunt down my poetry books. Dont forget tweedlewink covers a poem a day if you are stuck one day 
I like the idea of memorising some too. How can I best manage this....repeated reading and self illustration will probably work for my kids. thats how they rememeber their bible verses, although we dont always draw the picture but imagine them in all crazy finery.
we certainly wont have a shortage of poems....I may need to get a few more funny ones to keep Jaykob interested through out the whole year.

[Skylark]

Haha, Manda, thank you! I needed someone to cheer me up in this (blog).

But actually as I've started doing it, it turns out to be an excellent way to organise my materials and share them with others 

Memorization... We just read the poem enough times. The other day we did the Snow poem (http://earlyeducationessentials.com/snow/) while jumping on trampoline  Rhythm attracts children to poems, rhythm and repetition, so trampoline worked really well  Kids had it down in no time

[Mandabplus3]

Looks like you are a professional already! You have it in your signature AND managed a blog link in a relevant topic! NICE See we are impressed already!    Keep it up. Do let us know when you post something we ( OK I mean I) will like   
Love the trampoline idea! Doing that for sure!

[bella]

TTrampoline works  great for us too . Till the age of six tina never sat on a chair to learn and all she learned wasd eaither jumping on the trampoline or doing headstands or rolling on the bed

lookjing forward to your post on your blog skylark . Would be great help for me , sorry i should feel bad but these days i can do copying friends ideas , too tired to figure it out on my own
xxx

[bella]

oh and i didn't know classical baby has poetry show , i have art music and dance , when did they come out with this one ??
my kids loved the three i have .
viv

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