Pegs Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Which poems have your kindergartener/s memorised? What have you and they enjoyed learning together? Any favourites? We are having so much fun! We've just been picking fun things as we come across them. DS started with A Little Red Apple (from here http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/songspoems23.html); then learnt a funny poem about burping (4yo humour); Star light, Star bright; Halfway Down, by AA Milne. We are now working on The Owl and the Pussycat (he knows roughly every second line, so we recite together), and he's asked to learn The Swing, by RL Stevenson. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craftyerin Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 We have recently learned Hoppity by AA Milne and Cricket by Mary Ann Hoberman. My kids love them both! We just look for inspiration during poetry teatime when we have finished our current poem and need a new one to work on. I'm OK if that means we go several weeks between finishing one and falling in love with the next one to work on. It's been so fun, though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nature girl Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Can I ask whether you have any tips to make poetry memorization fun? I'd love to do this with my K-er, and we've read through several poems slowly and talked about them, but I think she'd get antsy and lose focus after more than a couple of repetitions. (I also don't think she's great at memorizing...It takes her a lot of repetition to remember the words to songs.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kerileanne99 Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Some of my dd4's favorite poems she memorized: The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear The Three Little Kittens by Eliza Lee Follen The Swing by Robert Lewis Stevenson My Shadow by Robert Lewis Stevenson The Worm by Ralph Bergengren Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens by Jack Prelutsky Table Manners by Gelett Burgress I Do Not Mind You, Winter Wind by Jack Prelutsky Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost Parts of Speech poem by David B. Tower and Benjamin F. Tweed Thirty Days poem 'Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement Clark Moore She also likes songs so we have done things like America the Beautiful, the Pledge of Allegiance, the Star-Spangled Banner, and now she likes speeches and parts of speeches... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kerileanne99 Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Can I ask whether you have any tips to make poetry memorization fun? I'd love to do this with my K-er, and we've read through several poems slowly and talked about them, but I think she'd get antsy and lose focus after more than a couple of repetitions. (I also don't think she's great at memorizing...It takes her a lot of repetition to remember the words to songs.) With my dd, I print out the poem for her 'memory book.' We choose the poems together, as there is no way she would focus on memorizing a long poem if she wasn't interested in it:) Then she reads it aloud a couple of times, and I read it the way a poem should be read so that she hears it that way. We have a large dry erase board, and I will write out a couple of lines from the poem. When those are memorized I erase them and write the next couple...so the first are said from memory and she can 'peek' if she gets stuck on the newer lines. Usually she ends up wanting to just read it in her memory book and just quickly outpaces me:) Oh! And I got her a little microphone to speak into, which is huge incentive to recite with prosody. Right now she is really wanting to memorize a long speech. We have been working on it for a month, here and there, and she is almost done. I bought her little finger puppets of the famous figure giving the speech and she REALLY gets into that, lol. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nature girl Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 I bought her little finger puppets of the famous figure giving the speech and she REALLY gets into that, lol. Haha, that is Fabulous!! One of those things you'll need to tape so you can cry at the cuteness 10 years from now. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ms.Ivy Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Mine like the Arrow and the Song, For Want of a Horseshoe Nail, How Doth the Little Busy Bee, and lots of nursery rhymes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pegs Posted September 18, 2014 Author Share Posted September 18, 2014 Can I ask whether you have any tips to make poetry memorization fun? I'd love to do this with my K-er, and we've read through several poems slowly and talked about them, but I think she'd get antsy and lose focus after more than a couple of repetitions. (I also don't think she's great at memorizing...It takes her a lot of repetition to remember the words to songs.) Well, we only do it because it's fun. ;) We read a fair bit of poetry, and DS has his favourites, which he requests during our reading time. So usually by the time he expresses interest in memorising a poem, he's already been exposed to it a few times. Or, he is interested because a line or two have stood out to him, and he wants to learn the rest. So, because the rhyme and meter make children's poetry so beautifully predictable, we start by alternating one line at a time, then two, then four or five, depending on the structure of each verse. We recite a new poem together a few times a day, because it's fun! DS isn't yet reading at a level where it would be useful to him to have the poem written down, so we haven't bothered with that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pegs Posted September 19, 2014 Author Share Posted September 19, 2014 Nawwww!!! He surprised me last night by filling in roughly every second line of Jabberwocky. He only had a handful of words a couple of years ago, and didn't talk until well past three, so there are still many sounds he can't get his mouth around yet. Yet, he's memorised them. Heart. Melting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeritasMama Posted September 19, 2014 Share Posted September 19, 2014 This anthology has poem suggestions for memorization and dictation for each grade, it's very useful: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0898707161/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/184-1016591-1125829 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PagesandFields Posted October 18, 2014 Share Posted October 18, 2014 We do seasonal or rhythm poems that we use almost like prayers. I don't stress the memorization... but I pick one to work on and we say it together (mostly just me saying it for the most part) after we gather together and sing our little morning song. I just say it once or twice... every day we do "school" (which is 6 days a week because some days "school" is just games or outside). When I do it every day usually they know it within a few weeks, and I try to continue using it throughout the season or day to remember it. Honestly usually they both memorize it before I do... I think memorized things should be meaningful... so I think it's important to personalize them to something that either truly delights you all, or has a meaning in some way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slache Posted October 18, 2014 Share Posted October 18, 2014 Psalms. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CTVKath Posted October 18, 2014 Share Posted October 18, 2014 My kids are 5 and almost 3 and they like memorizing nursery rhymes - recently Baa Baa Black Sheep and Little Boy Blue. This month we're memorizing a song - Johnny Appleseed. Next up is Thanksgiving poem. Katherine Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jsandyford Posted October 22, 2014 Share Posted October 22, 2014 There are some wonderful suggestions here. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serendipitous journey Posted October 23, 2014 Share Posted October 23, 2014 This book has some good recommendations for poetry memorization for young children. https://archive.org/details/booklesslessons01lyncgoog The author believed that children do not need "children's poetry," e.g. Stevenson or Milne and recommends "What Does Little Birdie Say?" by Tennyson for 4 YOs and memorizing Longfellow's Hiawatha for 5 YOs (that's in another book, IIRC). My DD quickly memorized the Tennyson poem and it's perfect for this stage. We see little birds everywhere and discuss whether they are "little birdies" or Mother birdies. .... Thank you for that link! I am just wondering -- Song of Hiawatha? was it an excerpt? have you done this? Just 'cause I'm reading it to A. right now, and it is long. Like over a hundred pages. Maybe I'm thinking of the wrong thing ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tawlas Posted November 19, 2014 Share Posted November 19, 2014 My younger ds has memorized the poems with his older siblings in FLL1 and FLL2. Easy peasy :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teneo Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 We have been focusing on memorizing Mother Goose. For winter-spring we'll be working through Favorite Poems For Children Coloring Book from Dover. It has poems like Owl And Pussycat, Wynkyn Blynkyn And Nod, Jabberwocky etc. My plan is after each poem is recited the page gets colored. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SamanthaCarter Posted November 21, 2014 Share Posted November 21, 2014 Great thread! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reign Posted November 29, 2014 Share Posted November 29, 2014 Past favorites At the zoo - A. A. Milne (with British accent) The Crocodile- Lewis Carrol Hope - Emily Dickinson ( to the tune of Gilligan's Isle) Full Fathom Five- Shakespeare Over The Misty Mountains- from The Hobbit Honestly it can be hard to tell what they'll like. I have read some poems to them thinking we'll use them for memory work and the girls will just veto them. We do memory work every morning before breakfast and they just expect it. Say some poems, drink a glass of water, and have breakfast. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pegs Posted November 29, 2014 Author Share Posted November 29, 2014 We are still sharing poems in bed at night. DS has learnt Jabberwocky, and we are now buddy-reciting The Quangle Wangle's Hat, and The Jumblies. There are some lovely suggestions in this thread, so I have a few ideas about what we might try next. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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