Poetry

I am here again to share with you my opinion about the importance of poetry for children. I was thinking in doing this post about an activity we are going to develop next Tuesday with children in my university, but I prefer to write about that next time to explain what we have done and my feeling doing something I want to.

 

Children’s poetry is poetry appropriate written for children. It includes:
 

1.      Folk poetry.

2.      Poetry written intentionally for young people.

3.      Poetry written originally for adults.

4.      Poems taken from prose Works.

 

I have been reading different articles about the importance of teaching poetry in Primary Education. I knew that it was important but I didn’t know many reasons because when I was a child, my teacher didn’t use to show us poems. I think I have now a clear opinion if someone asks me “Why is poetry so important for children?”

Children should make poetry a daily habit because if they try it, they will do it for the rest of their lives.

The teacher and parents should give oral readings to children, who will then carry poetry with them into an adulthood. They could use as a key my two best children’s poets on the 19^th century: Lewis Carrol and Edward Lear. Poetry is essential for children because it is “the best words in the best order”. The rhythm and rhymes can help children develop a love of reading, and for the language too. Once kids begin flexing their writing muscles, poetry can spark their creativity and let their imagination soar. One of the most important things is the idea of making the reading of a poem as an activity, not as a requirement, thinking on different ways to evolve children reading poems in their free time.

My own suggestion as a project to include poetry in a classroom is that the children’s school organizes a Poetry cafe, where parents and kids are invited to give poetry readings after school. I have thought about that because I think parents who get the reading habit early are bound to pass into their children.

I have chosen a poem from Julia Donaldson that I want to share with you because I think it is an example of a useful poem and the right way to introduce poetry.

 

 

I hope you liked it.

Classroom library project

I have chosen a topic that probably most of you know about it and also it could be very repetitive, but I will try to focus in a different way than my partners.

A classroom library is, as the name shows, a space inside the classroom where children can be evolve in reading. As I said before, all the teachers should think about it, and try to develop it in the best way they know because there are many ways of creating a classroom library adapted to your children. You can focus the idea in their interests, or even in their needs.

I have had to create one classroom library two weeks ago with a group of four people showing how it will be work if we use it with a real context. At first, we tried to find something original to make, but we could see that it was better something effectively because children will be evolve if you work hardly in evolve them, it is not very important if everything is beautiful and handmade. Also it is very important the tasks you want to develop related with the library, not only the disposition of the library. You should think you are the main important factor for the children in that moment, you should show them motivation, participation, integration and all the factors to facilitate them to read.

Reading is one of the most important things that a teacher should take into account when children are starting to learn the grammar, the sentences and the vocabulary. They need to appreciate the importance of a book in their lives with the experience of reading it; it is not something that they will learn because someone tells them. In my opinion, the way that a teacher chooses to create a classroom library is very important for the children’s future. When I was a child I didn’t read at all because my teacher didn’t use to tell me and repeat it to me that it was important. If we were 27 in my class, we probably had 30 books per classroom, and we only had to read the books, without any motivation or activities to do after reading. I think it is a mistake that my teacher committed with us, so I will try to avoid it.

I have had the opportunity to see a project like this, which is being developed in a school where I have done my Practicum I and II. They have given to their library three books per child, so they have almost 80 books per classroom, obviously there are books of all the topics (love, adventure, magic, Disney…). Children receive a sticker when they finish a book, and it will be an adventurous reading per month, the person who has more stickers that month. They also have to complete two tasks in order to motivate their partner about the book they have read.