Poetry!

Drew has been wanting to add in regular poetry memorization with the kids, but up to now, we haven't really done or expected much. At the beginning of January, we told the kids to choose one poem each to prepare to recite for the family. We originally scheduled our recitation for Saturday, but Nathan had to work, so we postponed it until dinner tonight.

We all had a great time and enjoyed the following pieces:

If All the World Was Paper
Moses
The House That Jack Built
Solitude
Strictly Germproof
Horses
Methuselah
Lochinvar
Daffodils
Portia's courtroom speech from The Merchant of Venice
The Battle of Ft. McHenry

The kids have been using their poems for copywork and a little grammar study this month. The two little ones were eventually able to write them completely from memory, with proper capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. I think I may incorporate the ones that tell stories into Classical Writing: Homer and Aesop.

Their assignment tomorrow is to choose their next poem. They've already begun planning. I'm going to begin working with them on their enunciation, breath-control, and expression.

A couple of the older kids really got into it and recited as if they were telling a story (which they were, after all, but it was much nicer than a rote, dry recital). I bet that was how it felt to listen to poetry around the campfire when there were no such things as television, DVD's, computers, or electric lights by which to read after the sun went down. (I can't believe I'm about to type this but …) I'm looking forward to reciting our newly-learned stock of poems around the campfire next summer when we go camping.

SDG!