To be honest -- and why be anything else -- I hardly ever have a day in which I just feel really great about that day's homeschool.  So often, I am distracted, and only halfway there, mentally.  I'd blame the 8 month old baby, but really, I've always been distractable.  My M.O. is to have too many irons in the fire, more initiatives than any one person can handle well, and therefore, I accomplish a lot... a lot of mediocre accomplishments!  But not a lot to feel really proud of.

But on the days I whip out the Writing Poetry with Children booklet, I can do no wrong.  I can walk on water, through fire, and I can almost even fly.  The boys become animated and creative, and even the dog perks up.  We all have great fun working out types of poetry together on the white board.  Here are some examples of our work - my 7 year old really submitted the best stuff.  Once he started, he couldn't stop himself:

Couplet (our group effort)
I saw a black cat.
It ate a large rat.

And then it got fat
and slept on a mat.

Then it was squashed flat
by a large bat.

Another Couplet (by MS - age 7)
Then we bought a rat
and it was real fat --

as big as a vat.
His name was just Pat.

He ate other rats --
what a giant brat!

Yet Another Couplet (by MS - age 7)
I saw a huge fox
It sat on the rocks

It had yellow socks
And loved to eat lox

It laid in a box
It had chicken pox

And chased many hawks.

Cinquain (by MS - age 7)
Fox
Red, wild
Deadly when close
Hoping for tasty prey
Scary

Cinquain (by OS - age 10)
Lego
Colorful blocks
Expensive to buy
Fun to play with
Colorful

So try it at home!  Send me your best couplet (two-line poem that rhymes; each line contains the same number of syllables) and your best Cinquain (we did ours with word count instead of syllable counts - so the lines are 1 word, then 2, then 3, then four, then one again.)  Next, we're going to try a Haiku, if you'd care to join us. 

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Posted by SmallWorld

It does my heart good to see such lovely poetry!

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