Sharing Poetry with Children

EP223: Sharing poetry with children captivates their imaginations, builds connections and empathy, and fosters language development necessary for literacy. In honor of National Poetry Month and Poem in Your Pocket Day, I bring you this episode all about the lively art of poetry. 

Listen in for ideas about collecting poetry, writing found poems, sharing seasonal poetry with your children, using poetry related to your current topic of study or main lesson block, and studying individual poets. 

Sharing poetry with children is an inspiring way to weave the lively arts into your homeschooling, and so simple, too! Hope you enjoy this episode of the Art of Homeschooling podcast!

Find the Show Notes here  https://artofhomeschooling.com/episode223/

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Chapters

• 0:40 Poetry draws us in.
• 3:04 April is National Poetry Month and Poem-in-Your-Pocket Day
• 3:30 Rudolf Steiner and Poetry
• 4:31 Why share poetry with children
• 6:06 How to collect poems
• 7:13 How to write a found poem
• 9:38 Poetry is one of the seven lively arts
• 10:11 Sharing seasonal poems with your children
• 10:51 Share poems by subject or topic in your homeschooling
• 11:31 Explore one poet at a time
• 12:32 One thing to steer away from ~ overanalyzing poetry

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

You're listening to the Art of Homeschooling podcast, where we help parents cultivate creativity and connection at home. I'm your host, jean Miller, and here on this podcast you'll find stories and inspiration to bring you the confidence you need to make homeschooling work for your family. Let's begin. What is it about poetry that draws us in? That's what we're exploring today in this episode. Perhaps it's the sparse words and images that those words paint, just incomplete enough for us to add the pictures in our minds. Sharing poetry with children is such a rewarding experience because they think in pictures.

Speaker 1: 1:07

My own love of poetry started as a young girl when I would read poetry for hours On dreary, rainy days I would go into our den and pull my mother's little red copy of 101 famous poems off the bookshelf and curl up on the couch and get lost in one poem after another. The earliest literature in every culture was of inverse form, often heavily rhymed to aid in the memory of the poems and oral transmission from one generation to the next. They would pass it on. I find that fascinating that a simple collection of a handful of words can communicate so much about emotion and what it means to be human. A memorized poem can also bring comfort in times of strife, and reading poetry is a creative act. When we listen to or read a poem, we engage with language that expresses powerful emotions, ideas and experiences. Poetry connects us with the inner life and outer experiences of another human being, allowing us to see the world through their eyes.

Speaker 1: 2:28

Now, april is National Poetry Month, if you didn't know that, so I love encouraging homeschoolers to think about how to share poetry with children at this time of year. In fact, coming up this week if you're listening to this episode in real time is a fun event called Poem in your Pocket Day. It's an annual event and this year it falls on Thursday, april 24th that's 2025. And I'll put a link to the event in the show notes, which you can find at artofhomeschoolingcom slash episode 223. Quite simply, this is a day for everyone to choose a poem, tuck it away in your pocket and share with everyone you meet. I've already selected my poem for this year and I'll be sharing it on social media on Thursday on Poem in your Pocket Day. What will your poem be? Have your children each pick a poem as well and share your poems with each other over tea or dinner time or somehow throughout the day.

Speaker 1: 3:30

I want to share a quote with you from Rudolf Steiner. This comes from his 1923 lecture the Child's Changing Consciousness as a Basis of Pedagogical Practice. And here's what Steiner had to say Poetry is conceived only through a solitary soul, but it is comprehended through human community. It is entirely concrete, not at all abstract, to assert that a person's inner being is revealed through the poetry created and that this is met by the deepest inner being of another human being who takes in that created work. Consequently, a delight in music and poetry, as well as a yearning for them, should be encouraged in the growing child. End quote Steiner believed strongly in the power of speech for regulating our breathing, because it helps to center us, give us focus and helps us be present in the moment.

Speaker 1: 4:31

So reciting poetry also gives this benefit of regulating the breath and helps to build community. So in our homeschools we can think of our family as the community. In my own experience, sharing poetry with children, this has been so true. Writing and reading poetry can be a very solitary experience, but sharing it together, reading it aloud and sharing poetry with each other is so enriching as a group, as a community. Poetry also helps children develop their literacy skills. Research shows that children who are exposed to rhyme, alliteration, which are the beginning sounds of words, and phonics, the single vocal sounds, exposure to these things at an early age, such as ages four five, help children develop reading skills more quickly and effectively about three years later. So it is the building over time of exposure to sounds and rhyme and rhythm that allow children to really develop their literacy skills. That's why the early childhood years in Waldorf education were full of rhymes and poetry and verse to lay a strong foundation for literacy. And poetry continues to play a part in lessons all the way through high school, listening to and reciting poetry in genders of love, of rhyme, rhythm and language.

Speaker 1: 6:06

I've collected so many wonderful poems over my 25 plus years of homeschooling three kiddos. I'm known for reciting a poem on walks in the woods or as the geese fly overhead, and it's something that brings me so much joy. Now I've used different organizational methods for this process, starting off with the good old-fashioned index cards in a box. I've also used file folders just to toss poems in, and now I have seasonal binders. But however you collect poems, start now because you will be surprised at how you can build them up over the years. You can make sections for each season of the year. You can have a section for morning, warm-up time, mealtime, blessings, bedtime verses. It's a wonderful way to bring more poetry into your life. Poetry is great to weave into circle time or warm-up time. As you're warming up for your lessons, you might recite an opening verse each day and learn a new seasonal poem by heart each week with your children.

Speaker 1: 7:13

And here's another fun activity have you ever tried writing a found poem with your children? A found poem is created by taking words from somewhere else and refashioning them. The words can come from existing texts like articles, speeches, other poems, letters, street signs, books the possibilities are endless. Or they can come from your recorded observations. It's really fun to do these out in nature when you go for a nature walk and collect everybody's observations of what they see and turn that into a poem. So you reorder the words that you've collected into a new piece of writing.

Speaker 1: 7:56

Writing found poetry is also a surprising and delightful experience. Every time I've done it I'm amazed. In fact, I love bringing this activity to homeschooling parents. Every summer at the Tapper Teacher Training we have collected words of observation from participants to turn into a poem and also invited individuals to find words in others' writing and cut those words out, forming them into a personal poem to express their experience of our weekend together. So I would love for you to come to TAPRT and experience this for yourself. The TAPRT teacher training happens every August in Ohio. It's an in-person event and this year is the 19th year of this training.

Speaker 1: 8:46

If you want to hear more about writing found poetry, check out episode number 105 here on the podcast, where I share seven steps to writing a found poem, and I've included a found poem written by a group of homeschooled children at our Rainbow's Edge co-op as an example. I'll also put a link to the Taproot teacher training in the show notes in case you're interested in joining in for that. Whatever your comfort level with poetry, I want to encourage you to explore poetry with your children. It can be as simple as pulling out some books of poetry and flipping through them while enjoying tea and muffins. I even have a podcast episode about that. Them while enjoying tea and muffins. I even have a podcast episode about that. You can check out episode number 175, reset with Tea and Poetry, and I'll put a link to that one in the show notes as well.

Speaker 1: 9:38

Poetry is one of those lively arts that really does bring joy to our lives and learning journeys. So, as we wrap up here, I want to offer you three ways to explore poetry as a homeschooling family. This does not have to be complicated and, in fact, can be quite fun. The very simplest approach to exploring poetry is hearing poems read aloud and then learning them by heart and reciting them by heart. It can be that simple. So here are three ways to explore poetry as a homeschooling family that bring some categories to it to help you wrap your mind around how you might weave more poetry into your lessons.

Speaker 1: 10:23

The first is seasonal poetry. Choose seasonal poems that relate to what's happening outside, in nature, in your area. These poems capture delightful images of the season, about flowers, the wind, ice and snow, for example. All ages appreciate these descriptive snippets of the world outside our windows, but they're particularly engaging for young children in kindergarten and the early grades. A second way is by subject. You can choose poems that relate to the subject or topic of your main lesson blocks during the elementary years, even into high school. I would say this is a great way to liven up the lesson with a poem. Just as an example, you might choose something about the antics of an animal right, or something more detailed about the life of an historical figure that you're studying. Longer poems also provide a wonderful opportunity for older children to memorize longer pieces of writing, and then they can write and illustrate these longer works into their main lesson books. And the final way is one poet at a time. Studying one poet at a time is best for older children, probably like middle school, high school, but this approach can also work when you have mixed ages with younger children.

Speaker 1: 11:45

Exploring the life of a poet from childhood to adulthood provides a wonderful backdrop for studying their poems. Poetry is so playful. It is a way to engage in language that's quite different than reading chapter books. Exploring poetry can help improve spelling, vocabulary and writing skills all at the same time. Even without direct instruction, teaching and understanding poetry does not require special training. Start by reading aloud and learning some poems by heart, so that you can recite them from memory and have your children do the same. This can really help instill an appreciation of poetry in your children.

Speaker 1: 12:32

Now one caveat, one little warning I want to give is be careful not to overanalyze or pick apart a poem too soon. I want to encourage you to enjoy poetry first. You do not need to study or teach the poem technically. This can wait really until high school, and even then, reading poetry aloud and memorizing it is good practice and so enjoyable, and it's best to have had years of experiences appreciating poetry before getting to that point. Don't forget April 24th this year is Poem in your Pocket Day. Pick a poem to share all day and invite your children to do the same.

Speaker 1: 13:13

Thanks so much for tuning in today. You'll find the show notes for this episode at artofhomeschoolingcom, slash episode 223. I hope that this has encouraged you to enjoy a variety of ways to explore poetry as a homeschooling family and, if so, please share with a friend who you think might like to bring more poetry to their children. And I'll see you on the next episode of the Art of Homeschooling podcast. That's all for today, my friend, but here's what I want you to remember Rather than perfection, let's focus on connection. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you on the next episode of the Art of Homeschooling podcast.