Day 14 SoL Story Challenge: She's A Poet And She Knows It

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Little L loves to create songs and poems. In this poem, she starts out by creating a sort of list, with a pattern to it. Then she begins to make up rhymes. Please enjoy this little "slice" of my life:

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I’ve got a shoe on my head

I’ve got a shoe on my foot

I’ve got a cloth on my head

I’ve got a cloth on my foot

I’ve got a brush…I don’t use

I’ve got a…neck I have choosed

I’ve got a earring that I don’t care

I’ve got a ring that I don’t spare

Haha…That’s silly.

I’ve got a phone that ran out of known…that ran out of drone

I’ve got a blanket that has a canket

That doesn’t make any sense!

It’s just a silly song.

I’ve got a fan that has a ban

I’ve got a mirror that has a birror

I have a pictures that have a wictures

I have a house, got mouse, got a pouse

I have a shoe on my head

I have a shoe on my foot

I’ve got a house, I’ve got a brouse, I’ve got a touse

I’ve got a mouse

I’ve got a brush I don’t wear I don’t care I don’t share I don’t spare

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This goes on and on for about three more minutes! As you can see, using rhyme in a poem is challenging. Not the actual rhyming words part. She's got the hang of that. But once her attention is on the rhymes, she gives up trying to make sense! For now, that's okay. We can make silly poems and have fun. But as time goes on, I'll keep nudging her to create songs and poems that have meaning.

In the classrooms I work in, kids and teachers often ask me why I don't teach them how to write poems that rhyme. Well, as Carl Anderson often says, meaning comes first. And I believe in that. I want kids to know that poems are powerful tools. We can use poems to describe objects and experiences. We can use poems to express ideas or feelings or to tell a story. I devote my teaching to meaning in poetry, because that is usually the part that kids and adults need more help with.

And yes, we can use poems to have fun and be silly too.