IEW's Poetry Memorization?

[amyrobynne]

Has anyone used it? I found a couple reviews, but there isn't much. I've never liked poetry much and I need handholding to convince myself to teach any to the kids. My middle son will do FLL2 next year and that has enough poetry memorization for me. My will-be 4th grader will be doing MCT Island and I know Music of the Hemispheres covers poetry, but aren't most of the poems his? So I was thinking about doing IEW'S Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization with him. Can it be done 2-3 days a week? Every day seems like overkill to me. I'd have him to poetry on the same days his brother covers poetry in FLL.

[fourcatmom]

We use it. We are going somewhat slowly but the girls have memorized about 15 of the poems so far. I think it's been a good thing for them but I don't really stress about the schedule, we just move forward at our own pace. Some of the poems are quite short and some are quite long but it's a nice variety in my opinion. We don't use any other program that includes poetry so this has been a nice addition for us. HTH!

[Heidi]

We use it and we recite four days a week. You could just as easily pick up a book of poetry and use that instead though.

[Mama2two]

We use it and just add it in with our other memory work. It's nice to have a list to work off of, but as Abigail said, you could use a book of poems as well. We do just a couple of minutes a day, but you couldn't easily do less.

[Maplecat]

We started the book in the new year and it has been a hit. The first grader enjoys the poems and has memorized five. The three year old has picked up two just by listening to us.

[Sew happily ever after]

The philosophy behind this program is similar to the Suzuki method of music. You could easily get the book only and read at least the intro for that alone as well as how to repeatedly practice the poems. The cd is nice though so the kids can listen to the poems spoken in voice that is not sing song like. I prefer having the book and there are some really great poems that my kids wouldn't be exposed to if I had just chosen them on my own or just picked up any poetry book.

[Dolphin]

Both my kids started it this year. I like it as my kindy girl who isn't reading yet can still work on memorizing poems. We keep it in a workbox with the book, cds, and a portable cd player with headphones. They love putting the headphones on and working on their poems.

[serendipitous journey]

If you don't like poetry yourself, IEW's program would be a good investment -- it is nice to outsource some things!

 

You can certainly do it 2 or 3 days a week. In that case, it would be ideal to do new or forgotten poems 3 times each on those days.

[ScoutTN]

We use it and just add it in with our other memory work. It's nice to have a list to work off of, but as Abigail said, you could use a book of poems as well. We do just a couple of minutes a day, but you couldn't easily do less.

 

We add in poems from other places - Helen Ferris' Favorite Poems Old and New mostly. We don't have the cd, but I have heard Pudewa's lecture and have the lists.

 

We do memory work 4x a week for about 10 minutes for my 5 yo and 15 minutes for my 7 yo.

Poems, Bible, lists for history or science.

[Mrs Twain]

My son would never be memorizing any poetry without this program. At first, he scoffed at the idea of poetry memory when I told him about it, saying that he didn't like poems. "Didn't you remember that I hate poems?" However, immediately after hearing the first poem read aloud by his little sister (Ooey Gooey in which a worm gets smushed by an oncoming train), he perked up and became enthusiastic. Therefore, I am glad that I coughed up the bucks for the IEW program. If you only have girls, maybe any old poetry book would be just fine.

[fourcatmom]

Except the poem about The Yak, that one has been tough for us. Anyone else hit a road block on that one? They can do it in pieces but it doesn't flow yet like the other one's do.

[amyrobynne]

This has been really helpful, thanks!

[laughing lioness]

It's a homeschool must have imho. An easy, painless intro to memory work, poetry, performance, and mastery learning. We've had it and used it for years. This year my 10 and 13 year old are memorizing Horatius at the Bridge (70 stanzas) as an extension of the IEW poetry...we're reading FMOG and FMOR along with and it's been a terrific tie-in to the history.

[amyrobynne]

Is there a particular age when it would be best to start this, or does it not matter too much?

[stm4him]

They can start as young as 2 :-)

 

This is also a big hit at our house, though next year I want to make more use of the cd. We plan to cover levels 1 and 2 in the elementary years.......I love that my kids can stand up together and recite poetry as a group, like they did in the old days.....

[laughing lioness]

My kids visited a One Room Schoolhouse 2 yrs ago and they had a 90+yo docent that had attended the school. He recited poems that my kids knew! They recited along with him and it was sosooo super cool!

[PentecostalMom]

Headed off to look into this. Sounds great!