Apr 11 2007
April is Poetry Month at Reading is Fundamental
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There’s a poetry month? You bet. And what better way to celebrate it than online with the RIF (Reading Is Fundamental) folks!
Kids can also look at artwork to help inspire them to write poetry. There are also booklists and a list of the top 40 poems for kids. There’s also the Poetry Splatter game, sorta like a cross between a Mad Libs and throwing paint. I tried out the Are You a Good Chef? one for ages 6-8, and this is what I got:
When you cook spaghetti do you make a tasty sauce?
Do you prepare a salad with fresh veggies that you toss?
When folks eat your food, do they laugh with glee?
Then perhaps a chef is what you should be.
O.K. so I’m a waaaay better blogger than a poet, but you get the idea.
Now I have a confession to make - I really don’t like poetry. Well, I didn’t care for what my English teachers assigned us to read. But when I read children’s poetry out loud to Nathan and Lucie, I suprised how much fun it is. Two of our favorite poetry books come from Usborne Books:
- Poems for Little Children - For ages four and up, the illustrations are as delicious as the words.
- Poems for Young Children - For ages seven and up, this book is full This hilarious limericks, enchanting nature poems and fun nonsense verses.
And finally a food recipe poem from Sydney Smith (1771–1845). I really do think you can make the salad dressing from this poem.
To make this condiment, your poet begs
The pounded yellow of two hard-boiled eggs;
Two boiled potatoes, passed through kitchen sieve,
Smoothness and softness to the salad give.
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl,
And, half suspected, animate the whole.
Of mordant mustard add a single spoon,
Distrust the condiment that bites so soon;
But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault,
To add a double quantity of salt.
Four times the spoon with oil from Lucca brown,
And twice with vinegar procured from town;
And, lastly, o’er the flavored compound toss
A magic soupcion of anchovy sauce.
O, green and glorious! O herbaceous treat!
‘T would tempt the dying anchorite to eat:
Back to the world he’d turn his fleeting soul,
And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl!
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
"Fate cannot harm me, I have dined to-day."
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electric fireplace
