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Poetry, Teatime, Beverly Cleary’s 100th Birthday, Shakespeare and More!!!

April is National Poetry Month!

So many good ideas, events, occasions and special themes are all converging in the next couple of weeks.

We have been enjoying Poetry Teatimes every Wednesday for the last several months. We have used children’s poetry books I got at the library. I enjoy “The Complete Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh” by A. A. Milne the most and read poems from it each time. I have a little book for Abby called “A Small Child’s Book of Cozy Poems” that I let her choose a poem from, then I read it aloud. She is not reading yet. Fiona has a favorite Poetry book called, “Forget-Me-Nots: Poems to Learn By Heart” by Mary Ann Hoberman that she chooses poems from and reads aloud during our teatime. The boys have chosen darker and more complicated poems from The Oxford Treasury of Classic Poems.

I am excited because I found some new poetry books at the library, and I’m anxious to set those out today to see what the kids choose to read from them. I have some by Jack Prelutsky and some books that have “reversos” in them written by Marilyn Singer. If you haven’t heard of “reversos”, you really need to check out “Mirror, Mirror” and “Follow, Follow” by Marilyn Singer.

Well, we had the Poetry Teatime yesterday, and Gary got to read some Jack Prelutsky poems with us. They were funny, and we had a good time with them. Shawn read some poems from a book I found at the library called “The Golden Books Family Treasury of Poetry”. They were really funny. We all really laughed out loud and enjoyed them. I was so happy to have Gary and Shawn join us. It made the occasion even more special and fun.

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Another exciting occasion that I plan to celebrate is Beverly Cleary’s 100th birthday on April 12th. I have checked out the audio books of her books about Ramona and her books about Henry Huggins. I plan to have the kids listen to them in the next couple of days. And then Read Aloud Revival is observing Drop Everything and Read Day and has a book club kit that you can download here: D.E.A.R Day

We may do a teatime to celebrate her birthday and listen to the audiobooks of Ramona or Henry.

And then, we will probably do a Shakespeare-themed teatime soon. I will have to figure out how to incorporate the other children besides Morgan into this.

A new website called Poetry Teatime has just launched, and it contains lots of good ideas for how to celebrate National Poetry Month. There are lots of other good ideas for how to have a Poetry Teatime at this website, too.

I have several other books ready to read aloud to everyone. We need to read some books to be ready for the next author event at Read-Aloud Revival. I have books by Candace Fleming that were highly recommended by Sarah Mackenzie at RAR. They are “Boxes for Katje” and “Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!”. The next Author Access Event is scheduled for April 17th.

I listened to the Author Access Event from March featuring Laura Purdie Salas. I found out about some really nice books and got them from the library, too. “A Leaf Can Be,” A Rock Can Be,” and “Water Can Be”. They are very imaginative and well-done. The illustrations are a good match for the words. This author is very good at thinking of common things in unusual ways and finding rhyming words to describe them in phrases that consist of only two words. Another good book by her is called “Book Speak” which is full of poems about books. Very creative and imaginative, these books are a joy to read aloud to children.

I also have books for children about spiritual warfare from Frostie Hall. She sent them to me when I asked for suggestions of something to read aloud on Facebook. She wrote a trilogy called “Dread Champions of the King”. I read them to the older kids several years ago when my neighbor let me borrow them.

I also have the audio adventure about Alfred the Great by G. A. Henty called “The Dragon and the Raven”.

This is not so much a wrap-up as a planning post. But I wanted to get everything in one place so that I will be more likely to get it done.

2 Comments

  1. Funny! I do this sometimes too; I find if I put my plans out there for everyone to read it tends to gel the plan in my mind as well as make me more accountable.

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