Poems and Poetry for Children

Young children love poetry. They revel in its freedom and its capacity to express feelings. They laugh unabashedly at silly poems. A group of children hearing a good poem display a natural attentiveness that is almost impossible for an adult to create. Their eyes grow larger with expectation as the poem develops. During my 25 years of teaching elementary age children, I have never had classroom discipline problems during the reading of an age and grade appropriate poem. The phenomenon seems universal. Something magical happens when a good poem opens children's emerging minds to poetic expression.The intent of this book is to expose children to one form of writing poetry. That form is end-of-line, rhyming poetry. Children as young as kindergarten age understand when simple words rhyme. They love the meter and rhythm of poems that touch their lives.But reading poetry to children and teaching them to begin writing it is almost non-existent in most elementary school classrooms. It is not surprising that children, especially boys, have little appreciation of poetry and the joy it can bring.This book has two goals, presented in two sections: (1). Section one contains 40 original poems written by the book's author. Each poem category had been carefully researched to insure that it is developmentally appropriate. Toward this end, the first 2 poems in each 10 poem category are written for primary age children (grades k-3). The remaining 2 poems in each 10 poem category are written for intermediate age children (grades 4-6). The ten poem categories are: * Silly Poems* Happy Poems* Sad Poems* Wondering Poems* Body Poems* Mom and Dad Poems* Animal PoemsSchool Subject Poems *Science Poems * Mathematics Poems * Social Studies Poems(2) The second section of the book features a guide to help parents, grandparents, and teachers teach elementary age children how to begin writing simple, end-of-line, rhyming poetry. It features three easy steps that any parent, grandparent, or teacher can use to introduce their child or children how to write rhyming poetry. These steps have been field tested in a variety of elementary schools by the author and have proved to be effective in introducing children to poetry writing.