Poetry Activity

On Easter weekend I went to the river with my family.  My sister Danielle, my sister-in-law LaSae, my little brother's girlfriend Mary, and I were all sitting by the water under the trees.  We were sitting there laughing together because I was reading poems to them out of A Child's Anthology of Poetry.  We decided that our favorite poem was "Sick" by Shel Silverstein.  Then LaSae said, "I wish I could write poetry."  I told her, "Well in my Reading 302 class I wrote a poem and it goes like this:  There once was a cow named Tim, Who likes to play with Kim.  They ran about, And gave a shout, And she fell in love with him!"  Everyone thought it was funny, so we started a game.  LaSae said, "Oh how the trees sway," and I said, "Down by the bay."  Danielle said, "Look at the bees," and Mary said, "High up in the trees!"  And we continued with this for about an hour, it was one of the most fun we have had at the river in a long time!!!

The moral of this story: I think this would be a fun activity for my classroom one day.  One part of poetry is poems that rhyme, and I think this would be a good way to work on rhyming.  The class can sit in a circle and we can go one by one around the room and say lines that rhyme!