Do you read your children poetry?
I remember being very ambivalent about poetry at school. I don’t ever really recall understanding meter and how to structure a poem. I could probably barely tell you the difference between a haiku and an epigram.
I finally enjoyed reading poetry when we studied the War Poets, and Wilfred Owen in particular. I’m still shaky on the technical aspects, but I am now willing to learn. My little people are clearly not of an age where understanding the differences between poetic styles and the technical aspects of poetry construction are necessary. However, I am keen for them to learn rhythm and word play through poetry. So I have been trying to make sure we always have at least one book of poems for reading when we bring a bag of books back from the library.
The latest book is from the “I Can Read!” series and it is called Dizzy Dinosaurs: Silly Dino Poems.
So far we have a couple of hits from this volume. Admittedly, the cute dinosaur cartoons are helping my cause. Here is the current favourite:
School Rules
by Sarah Hansen
No chomping
No romping
No treading on tails
No clawing
No climbing
No gnawing your nails
No roaring
No soaring
No sharpening teeth
No stamping
No stalking
Small friends to eat
These are rules
All dinos must follow
They keep school safe –
So no one gets swallowed!
I am convinced that this is a great favourite, not only because of the rhyming and rhythm, but because it is accompanied by a picture of a small, very toothy dinosaur about to bite the tail of a larger, clearly the teacher, dinosaur.
So, what are your children’s favourite poems?
The Pukeko Patch 
Yes…, it was very… very… long! I was super impressed with him for reading it straight through without stoppingor getting bored lol. I just liked it so much as it told a good story and he understood it after all that long slog reading it!
I doubt Rua would be very interested in it, but he’d love the dinosaur one!
Cute poem! I might look that book out 😀 Jack has done a little bit at school, he knows the names of a few types of poems – I can’t really remember anything about the structure etc that we learnt at school! His reading book last night was Paul Revere’s Ride http://poetry.eserver.org/paul-revere.html which we both really enjoyed. I find that his reading is very smooth and he makes less mistakes when it has a rhythm. Other than that, the only poetry I can think of here is their bedtime prayers
That’s a good poem, but very long. I don’t think I could hold the little people’s attention with that yet. I must dig out some R.L.Stevenson poems – I loved his book “A Child’s Garden of Verse” – and try them with the kids.
My most personal favourite being:
The Land of Counterpane
When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay,
To keep me happy all the day.
And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;
And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.
I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.