Welcome back to the Literacy Musing Mondays. This week we have a guest post about one of my literature forms : poetry. KT Brison shares some great tips on introducing poetry to children. I hope you enjoy.

Reading Poetry With Children

 By KT Brison

Reading poetry with kids can be a joyful experience, but first you have to get your littles interested. What are the best ways to do that?

How to make poetry appealing to kids

Add Visual Beauty

One of the easiest ways to do this is to find a beautifully illustrated book of poems.  My copy of Dean’s Mother Goose Book of Rhymes, illustrated by Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone, has captured my imagination since I was 6 years old.  The pictures in this book are the kind that a little can stare at for hours.  Coupling such illustrations with poetry practically guarantees a child’s interest.

Add Laughter

Can you say Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky?  Both of these geniuses have written several books of poetry for kids that will leave your littles in stitches.  And a spoonful of laughter helps the poetry go down.  In the most delightful way.

Add History

I lucked into my 1935 copy of Sung Under the Silver Umbrella at a yard sale for a quarter.  This book is filled with poems for children by some of the greats–Christina Rossetti, Edward Lear, R.L. Stevenson, and Edna St. Vincent Millay, to name a few.   Our Children’s Own Longfellow is from 1908.  The boys love to read from these books and think about all the people who may have read them before.  Plus, you know that great smell an old book has?  Poetry.

Add a Story

Who better to make you littles fall in love with poetry than Lewis Carroll?  When a poem is inserted into a story as wonderful as Alice in Wonderland, suddenly your littles are wanting very much to read and understand it.  We have a copy of The Jabberwocky on our classroom wall because it is one of our all-time favorites.

Add a Tea Party

One of my favorite trends on the interweb right now is the poetry tea time.  We even recently purchased a matching tea set to make ours more authentic.  Serve a yummy, cozy tea, cuddle up with your kiddos, and read some good poetry.

However you do it, now is the time to get your littles interested in poems and create a lifelong love that they will always be grateful for and memories for them to take with them wherever they go.

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KT Brison is a former children’s librarian and educator who gave all that up for the most important job in her life—homeschooling her boys.  Though she loves the outdoors and rambling around her farm, she can usually be found with her nose in a book.  Any book.  As long as it has words. You can connect with her on her blog, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, or Instagram.

Now on to our weekly Literacy Musing Monday’s linkup where we link up posts about what inspires you in reading, writing, blogging, and even share our written Bible devotions.

First,  let’s

Now let’s celebrate family-friendly reading and learning.

Last Week’s Top Clicked Post!

Globetrotting with Books: The Series & Link Up

We have a new linkup joining us at the Literacy Musing Mondays community which also happened to be the most clicked this week. Organized by Swapna with the Globetrotting Mom, this linky is only for posts on books that explore a country or have a backdrop of a country. It could be a book review or how a place or experience reminded you of such a book. No other topic. I really love this idea. Now, I have to put a post together for the linkup. Be sure to check your archives for posts that you think will match up and join in the fun.

My Favorite Post of the Week:

36 Weekly Writing Prompt Ideas for Homeschoolers {Printable}

Remember to check out other hosts’  blogs to see which posts from last week were their favorites. Want to be the next to be featured! Just link up a post and if you are read the most, we will feature you. Also please make sure you link back to us so others will know about our link up and join in. We try to make it worth your while to linkup with us by promoting your posts across our social media networks. We also pin our most clicked and featured posts to our Pinterest Board each week!

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Now, it is time to link up to the Literacy Musing Mondays hop! You will have until Saturdays at 12 p.m. now to link up! So come back often.

Linkup Rules:

1. Include a link back or the blog hop button linked to this hop on your posts.
2. Link up the urls to your posts not to your blog.
3. Please remember this is a family-friendly linkup. Although we believe in the right for adults to read whatever they want to read, we prefer to read wholesome posts that feature literature that edify and uplift families. We reserve the right to delete any posts that are not family friendly. We love all kinds of literature and genres including family-friendly inspirational romances, fantasy, or science fiction. We do not welcome posts featuring books or writing with excessive violence, sexual content, or cursing. These posts will be deleted.
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[Tweet theme=”tweet-box-shadow”]Come join the fun! Link up your family-friendly, book- or literacy-related posts at #LMMLinkup ! @Maryandering[/Tweet]

Let’s Celebrate Reading and Learning together this week at Literacy Musing Mondays!