Bringing truth, goodness and beauty to children~ one whimsical (and sometimes silly!) story at a time.
Poetry Tuesday
Hello! Welcome to Poetry Tuesday: the day we dip (or dive) into the lovely world of poetry!
Each Tuesday from June 19 to August 21, 2018, I’ll share a Poetry Activity, a Poem Study, plus an Advanced Poetry Lesson. Feel free to enjoy one, two, or all three of these fun resources! (Click on the title links)
Poetry Activity (for kids, adults, and everyone in between): Alliteration Poem
Poem Study: Bear in There, by Shel Silverstein
Advanced Poetry Lesson: Ballads, (Week 1 of 2)
Interested in poetry?
Learn about alliteration using this poetry activity for kids, adults, and everyone in-between!
A. Introduction to Alliteration:
Have you ever tried to say a tongue-twister? Can you say this one?
She sells seashells by the seashore.
Think it’s difficult to say this singularly silly saying?
When two or more words start with the same letter or sound, it’s called an alliteration.
(I just adore amazing alliterations! Don’t you?)
Here are some more examples:
1. Alexander the armadillo ate absolutely amazing apples and ants.
2. Beehives buzz and babies blow bubbles.
3. Caroline cried because she couldn’t catch cantaloupes.
4. Daryl didn’t do anything daring, did he?
These are silly examples, but alliteration can also be used beautifully in poetry to make it sing.
B. A Sunny Alliteration Poem
Our activity today will use alliterations to write a poem about the sun.
hot scorching, sizzling
beautiful spectacular, superb, stunning
big substantial
Now we write the poem!
A few notes:
~This poem doesn’t have to rhyme or have a meter. It can just be free-form (See my example if that didn’t make sense. Notice how my poem doesn’t rhyme?)
~In this kind of poem, the first word of each line does not have to be capitalized. Use capital letters the way you would use them in a normal sentence.
~Each line can have one word, or many words. Play with the spacing! You have complete freedom.
~Not every word has to begin with “s.” If you need a few extra words to tie it together, that’s okay!
Below is an example of what your poem could look like. Mine is pretty short, having used a short word list, but feel free to make yours longer! You could make it silly, super simple, or more serious. Experiment with different groups of words too. The sky’s the limit!
Sun
Spectacular,
striking,
sizzling,
stunning,
shining on
my skin,
shining in
my soul—
sun.
~Hannah Spuler
Pleased with your poem? Share it in the comments or post it on my Facebook page so we can all read and enjoy them!
Hungry for more? Check out this week’s…
Poem Study: Bear in There, by Shel Silverstein
Advanced Poetry Lesson: Ballads, (Week 1 of 2)
Let’s read a poem and study it together!
Not sure how to study a poem? Here are some ideas! Choose one or all of these:
Circle or underline the alliterations!
Bear in There
There’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 fish
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–
That polary bear
In our Fridgitydaire.
by Shel Silverstein
Hungry for more? Check out this week’s…
Poetry Activity (for kids, adults, and everyone in between): Alliteration Poem
Advanced Poetry Lesson: Ballads, (Week 1 of 2)
Let’s write some poetry!
The next two Tuesdays we’ll be learning about ballads!
A. Introduction to Ballads
I love ballads. When I learned about ballads for the first time, I had already been writing them for years without knowing it. They’re regular, repetitive, and musical. Most songs you hear on the radio would be considered a ballad of one kind or another.
Fun fact: Did you know that rap is actually a contemporary ballad?
B. What is a Ballad?
The SUN was SHINing ON the SEA
See how there are 4 stresses?
SHINing with ALL its MIGHT
And then 3?
C. Ballad Example
Walrus and the Carpenter
(lines 1-18), from Through the Looking Glass
The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright —
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.
The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done —
“It’s very rude of him,” she said,
“To come and spoil the fun.”
The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead —
There were no birds to fly.
~Lewis Carroll
D. Write your ballad!
Are you ready to write your ballad? Great! Come up with your story and write it in verse form, following the guidelines above. If you’re happy with it, remember to share it on my Facebook page or in the comments!
Hungry for more? Check out this week’s…
Poetry Activity (for kids, adults, and everyone in between): Alliteration Poem
Poem Study: Bear in There, by Shel Silverstein
Hello! Welcome to Poetry Tuesday: the day we dip (or dive) into the lovely world of poetry!
Each Tuesday from June 19 to August 21, 2018, I’ll share a Poetry Activity, a Poem Study, plus an Advanced Poetry Lesson. Feel free to enjoy one, two, or all three of these fun resources! (Click on the title links)
Poetry Activity (for kids, adults, and everyone in between): Fill-in-the-blank poem
Poem Study: The Brook, by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Advanced Poetry Lesson: Odes, Week 2
Interested in poetry?
Combine rhyme and meter using this fill-in-the-blank poetry activity for kids, adults, and everyone in-between!
A. Review: Rhyme
Remember the lesson about rhyming?
These are examples of words that rhyme:
stop, hop, lop, plop
Need a refresher on rhyming? Click here.
B. Review: Meter
Remember the lesson about meter?
Here are two lines that have four beats, or stresses:
Twinkle, Twinkle, little star,
How I wonder what you are.
Need a refresher on meter? Click here.
C. Fill-in-the-blank poem
Below is a fill-in-the-blank poem where the basic idea and structure is there and you get to fill in the blanks! This poem has a strong meter as well as an AABB rhyme scheme (lines 1 and 2 rhyme with each other and lines 3 and 4 rhyme). If the word is at the end of the line, make sure you keep the rhyme scheme. Give it a try!
(Title)
My (noun) is/are cold
And my (noun) is/are old.
My (noun) is/are hot
But my (noun) is/are not.
My (noun) is/are blue,
My (noun) too,
But not my (noun) ,
Because it’s/they’re (noun) .
I have a (noun)
And he/she/it has a (noun) .
I/We (verb) outside
But I/we (verb) inside.
My (noun) is tall,
My (noun) is small,
And that is all,
My friend.
The End.
Simplified definitions:
Noun: a person, place, thing, or idea
Verb: an action word
Hungry for more? Check out this week’s…
Poem Study: The Brook, by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Advanced Poetry Lesson: Odes, Week 2
Let’s read a poem and study it together!
Not sure how to study a poem? Here are some ideas! Choose one or all of these:
The Brook
(excerpt)
I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,
And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me, as I travel
With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,
And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on for ever.
I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows;
I make the netted sunbeams dance
Against my sandy shallows.
I murmur under moon and stars
In brambly wildernesses;
I linger by my shingly bars;
I loiter round my cresses.
And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
By Alfred Lord Tennyson
Hungry for more? Check out this week’s…
Poetry Activity (for kids, adults, and everyone in between): Fill-in-the-blank poem
Advanced Poetry Lesson: Odes, Week 2
Let’s write some poetry!
This week and last, we’ve been learning about Odes!
A. Introduction to Odes:
An ode is a poem that celebrates or appreciates something or someone.
For example…
John Keats wrote an Ode to a Nightingale.
Pablo Neruda wrote an Ode To Sadness.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote an Ode about France.
There is an Ode to Silence, by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
William Wordsworth wrote an Ode to Duty.
There’s even an Ode To My Socks by Pablo Neruda, who’s known for writing odes to unusual subjects.
Here’s part of an ode written by Pablo Neruda about a large fish in the market:
Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market
(Translated by Robin Robertson)
“Surrounded
by the earth’s green froth
—these lettuces,
bunches of carrots—
only you
lived through
the sea’s truth, survived
the unknown, the
unfathomable
darkness, the depths
of the sea,
the great
abyss,
le grand abîme,
only you:
varnished
black-pitched
witness
to that deepest night.”
B. All About Odes
C. Reading Odes
As you read the following excerpts, ask yourself:
~What is the poet celebrating or admiring?
~Does the poem rhyme?
~Does it have strong imagery?
The (Brooklyn) Bridge
(excerpt)
How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest
The seagull’s wings shall dip and pivot him,
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters Liberty—
Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes
As apparitional as sails that cross
Some page of figures to be filed away;
—Till elevators drop us from our day…
~Hart Crane
The Fire of Driftwood
(excerpt)
We sat within the farmhouse old,
Whose windows, looking o’er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze damp and cold,
An easy entrance, night and day.
Not far away we saw the port,
The strange, old-fashioned, silent town,
The lighthouse, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses, quaint and brown.
We sat and talked until the night,
Descending, filled the little room;
Our faces faded from the sight,
Our voices only broke the gloom.
~Henry W. Longfellow
D. Writing An Ode
Your turn to write an ode!
~Think of something or someone that you love and want to celebrate!
~Try writing a short one to start (5 lines or so) and then grow it to 7 or 10 as you have more to say.
~If you’re a more experienced writer, see if you can make it 15-30 lines!
~If you like rhyming, go for it, but remember that not every ode has to rhyme.
E. Advanced: More About Odes:
For the purposes of this quick, fun, introduction, I’ve only talked about odes in general, but if you’re interested, look into the specific kinds of odes:
Pindaric
Horatian
Irregular
There are also different ode parts:
The strophe
The antistrophe
The epode
Pleased with your ode? Share it on my Facebook page or in the comments!
Hungry for more? Check out this week’s…
Poetry Activity (for kids, adults, and everyone in between): Fill-in-the-blank poem
Poem Study: The Brook, by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Hello! Welcome to Poetry Tuesday: the day we dip (or dive) into the lovely world of poetry!
Each Tuesday from June 19 to August 21, 2018, I’ll share a Poetry Activity, a Poem Study, plus an Advanced Poetry Lesson. Feel free to enjoy one, two, or all three of these fun resources! (Click on the title links)
Poetry Activity (for kids, adults, and everyone in between): Write Your Own Nursery Rhymes
Poem Study: My Shadow, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Advanced Poetry Lesson: Odes (Week 1 of 2)
Interested in poetry?
Combine rhyme and meter using this activity for kids, adults, and everyone in-between.
A. Introduction: Nursery Rhymes
Can you finish this phrase?
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great—
Did you get it??
Okay, now how about this one?
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick,
Jack jump over the candle—
And this one?
Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,
The cow’s in the meadow, the sheep in the—
How did you do?
If you grew up with nursery rhymes, you probably could have filled in all those missing words in your sleep, and even recited the rest of the rhyme. If you grew up speaking English, chances are, you knew at least one of those nursery rhymes.
You also probably knew that nursery rhymes were made for children. But have you ever stopped to think about why they are so easy to remember?
Any guesses?
(Drumroll please…)
They rhyme! (Probably why they’re called nursery rhymes.) Take the first example…
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick,
Jack jump over the candlestick.
They also have a simple meter:
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick,
Jack jump over the candle stick.
(Not quite sure you understand? Look at these past lessons: rhyme, meter)
B. Write your own nursery rhyme!
Let’s use some classic nursery rhymes and change them slightly to make them into new poems! During this activity, watch for the rhyming words and the meter!
Original:
Hey Diddle Diddle, the cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such a sight
And the dish ran away with the spoon!
Fill in the blanks to write your own poem!
Hey Diddle Diddle, the _______ and the fiddle
The __________ jumped over the moon
The little __________ laughed to see such a sight
And the __________ ran away with the spoon
Original:
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells, and little maids all in a row.
Fill in the blanks to write your own poem!
________ _________, quite contrary, how does your ________ grow?
With silver ________ and _________ ________, and little _________ all in a row.
Pleased with your poem? Share it in the comments or post it on my Facebook page so we can all read and enjoy them!
C. Extra Challenge: A Nursery Rhyme From Scratch
To write a nursery rhyme, come up with either:
1. A lesson to teach children (aka, How to Count, or Why Kids should Eat Their Veggies) or
2. A simplified story from history (aka, The Noble Duke of York)
See if you can come up with four lines of the poem, where the first two lines rhyme and the second two rhyme. See what you can create, and don’t forget to share!
Hungry for more? Check out this week’s…
Poem Study: My Shadow, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Advanced Poetry Lesson: Odes (Week 1 of 2)
Hannah Spuler 