Christmas Poetry

Every year, during the Advent season, we try to tailor part of our lessons toward Christmas. This, of course, is easier with some subjects. I have found poetry to be the easiest subject to incorporate Christmas.

Whether we memorize, recite, read, or write a few lines of poetry, during the month of December, poetry is centered around Christmas.

This year, my youngest daughter is completing a three week mini-unit from IEW's All Things Fun & Fascinating. She has completed an acrostic style poem called Jesus Was Born {pictured above}. Next week, she will write a Cinquain {a five line poem with a specific syllable pattern}.

While creating her own poetry, she, along with her siblings, will listen to these poems:
Christmas Trees, by Robert Frost
Christmas in India, by Rudyard Kipling
Christmas at Sea, by Robert Louis Stevenson

Additionally, she and her older sister are memorizing Love Came Down at Christmas, by Christina G. Rossetti.


Related Posts:
Reciting Poetry for Christmas
Christmas Poetry and Memorization

Christmas Poetry and Memorization

During Christmas past, as in last year, our children recited poetry in pairs at a local nursing home. The older two recited Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening and the younger two combined efforts to present The Gift, by Christina G. Rossetti.


This year, I decided to have each child work on an individual poem or piece of memorization.

Three children are memorizing poems. Our youngest child, who is in Kindergarten, memorized the actual words to The Gift. Last year, he held up specific props for each line. This year, he now has the entire poem memorized. Though I am sure that hearing the poem multiple times last year helped his memorization. Our fourth grader is working on learning Christmas Everywhere, and our sixth grader is memorizing Christmas Bells.

Luke 2:1-20 has been chosen for our eighth grader to memorize. It is a bit ambitious, but worth the time and effort. Since the words are read aloud every year on Christmas morning, it is a passage he is very familiar with. We are pleased with his progress.


For Christmas future, as in next year, I am considering the following poems:
for memorization ~
Love Came Down at Christmas, Christina G. Rossetti
for reading and discussing ~
Christmas Trees, Robert Frost
Christmas in India, Rudyard Kipling
Christmas at Sea, Robert Louis Stevenson

In Her Words

Shyly, she asks, "Is that the picture?"

"It is," she breathes out her own answer before I can reply.

We were in Washington, D.C. viewing an exhibit on photography in American history when she found it.  She saw a copy of the face which had touched her last spring in a co-op class.  The class, an art, history, and writing combination class, was taught by another mom and myself.  We combined the three subjects by using pictures and paintings from American history with accompanying art and writing lessons.

One month we spent studying the photograph of "Migrant Mother" by Dorothea Lange.  If ever we wanted a piece to convey emotion, this was it.  The children learned the story behind the photograph and gained a general sense of the time period.  They were then assigned the task of writing a poem about the picture.  Our oldest daughter, who was 11 at the time, chose to write from one of the little girl's perspectives.  Her poem follows...

A Little Girl's Story

I'm a little girl, one of seven.

I'm only about three

with six other siblings,

five older than me.

I'm a little girl, one of seven.

So many mouths to feed,

how can my mother do it

without a husband's lead?

I'm a little girl, one of seven,

with a tent for a home.

Inside the dark woods

is where I get cold.

I'm a little girl, one of seven,

waiting for this to be over.

So I can be satisfied

and Mother can rest.

Poetical Science

Honestly, I never thought to put science and poetry together.  That is, until we found these two books at our local library.

Animal Naps - Catherine Ham
It is a book about various animals sleeping with accompanying poetry. The poems themselves vary in rhythm.  Some were easier to read aloud than others.  Generally, the content was good, and the words was playful.  However, I should add some of the poems didn't really interest my five year old.  He was more interested in the photography.  All the pictures are of real animals sleeping. These pictures are amazing, my youngest son especially like the hedgehog and alligator pictures.  Overall, I would recommend borrowing this title, if only for the photographs. They are delightful.On a side note, the boa poem offered me a chance to tell our five year old about one of the snakes we use to own.  {No reptiles in the house now, just a dog} 

UnBEElievables: Honeybee Poems and Paintings - Douglas Florian
This book is all about bees.  Poems vary in type and content, with each one telling about one specific attribute or aspect of bees. There is a lot of scientific information contained in this poetry book.  For instance, we learned about dancing, specific types of bees and their jobs, how a bee develops, and bee keepers.  Each page has a small inset paragraph explaining scientific and historical facts about bees that relate to the content of each poem. This is definitely a book I would borrow again.  It would make a great resource for a bee unit study.

Linked to Read Aloud Thursday at Hope Is the Word, a great place to find all sorts of interesting books!

Birds and Flowers Galore

It is spring!  Don't you just love how nature is bursting forth with life?  All sorts of creatures are emerging out of hiding.  Birds are chirping, building nests, laying eggs, and generally hanging around our back yard.

This week, at the library, we found a book full of full color photographs and poetry.  The photographs of Jason Stemple are paired with the words of Jane Yolen in Birds of a Feather.  We enjoyed the individual poems and short descriptions of each bird.  Many of the birds we have seen in our nature walks or while visiting family members, a few were new to us, but all of them were fun to look at and read about.

The children also pulled Bird Songs from Around the World, by Les Beletsky from our shelves.  Delving into the book, they paged through most of the book, reading about a variety of birds and listening to their recorded calls.

Flowers are in bloom spreading their sweet scent and beauty throughout our yard.  Not only are our children observing the beauty of creation in our very own yard, they are finding ways to use some of it. 

Our youngest son decided to line the center of the fire pit table with a few of these golden dandelions.

Our oldest daughter gave me a bouquet of cherry blossoms from the tree in our front yard.  She attached a note with precious words of gratitude and the assurance that these blossoms were not picked from the tree, but gleaned from the yard.

Both daughters have made a plethora of paper flowers to give to their grandmas and aunts.  Those pictured above were the ones they made me.  They used a book and paper from a set my youngest daughter received as a gift for Christmas.

And, just the other day, Marla shared this adorable food idea in the shape of a flower.  It is something I want to try for my children soon.

Winter Poetry

Since we actually had a measurable snowfall this past weekend, I wanted to include a few winter poems into our homeschool days this week.  Two books, found at the library, were a simple way to achieve this.

Our two oldest children have memorized Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost, and it is one of my favorite poems.  Despite, or perhaps because of, our familiarity with the poem, we thoroughly enjoyed a book illustrated by Susan Jeffers.  Using one line of the poem for each page, Jeffers adds visual beauty to the words.  Her illustrations are lovely.

A poem we were less familiar with was originally called A New England Boy's Song About Thanksgiving Day in 1844.  Some may know the poem as Over the River and Through the Wood, by L. Maria Child.  It is based on her memories of going to her grandfather's house near the Mystic River in Medford, MA.  Though the poem is set on Thanksgiving Day, the family's sleigh ride through the snow definitely seems wintry and was a lot of fun to read after the recent snowfall.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day and More

This year, our history studies will only carry us through 1850.  Which is about a hundred years too early for studying Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement.  However, that will not stop us from incorporating a few history books into our lessons for the day.  Several of the books we will peruse today are...


A Voice of Her Own: The Story of Phillis Wheatley, Slave Poet, written by Kathryn Lasky tells of Phillis Wheatley, who lived during the time period of our current history studies.  This picture book biography will be a fabulous starting point. 


Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans, by Kadir Nelson, offers a comprehensive history from the American Revolution through Martin Luther King, Jr.  We will read parts of this together.  Then, I will ask the older two children to take a few days and read through it independently.


and


My Uncle Martin's Words for America, by Angela Farris Watkins, PhD., rounds out our mini unit.  A fantastic biography using Martin Luther King, Jr.'s own words intertwined into the narrative.  The repetition of key words like love and freedom focus the reader on the values King promoted.  It is an excellent introduction to the impact of his life.


Another book I should mention is one that we read almost every year.  It is The Story of Ruby Bridges, by Robert Coles.  Ruby Bridges is a young girl caught up in the large scale drama of desegregation in the public school system.  Her poise, compassion, and honest outlook are touching and humbling.  {I read this book with a pack of tissues nearby.}

Reciting Poetry for Christmas

Every year, our Friday co-op holds a Christmas Co-op.  We bake cookies, make crafts, and visit a near by nursing home.  At the nursing home, the children sing, play instruments, and recite for the residents.  Afterwards, the children give their homemade gifts to the residents who attended the program as well as those who did not attend.

This year, our children recited poetry.  The two older combined efforts and shared a recitation of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost.  It was complete with sleigh bells used as a sound effect for line 9: 'he gives his harness bells a shake'.  Our two younger children worked together as well.  The poem, The Gift, by Christina G. Rossetti, was recited by our daughter as our youngest son used motions and props for visual aids.

The motions and visual props that accompanied a recitation of
The Gift, by Christina G. Rossetti
What can I give Him,  {child holds out empty hands, palms facing upward}
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd,  {child holds up stuffed lamb}
I would bring Him a lamb.
If I were a wise man,  {child holds up gift wrapped box}
I would do my part.
But what can I give Him?  {child holds up red paper heart}
Give Him my heart.

The children will recite these poems again at our family's Christmas celebration before performing their original play, A Valley Forge Christmas.