Keep A Poem In Your Pocket
By Beatrice Schenk de Regniers

Keep a poem in your pocket
And a picture in your head
And you’ll never feel lonely
At night when you’re in bed.
The little poem will sing to you
The little picture bring to you
A dozen dreams to dance to you
At night when you’re in bed…

Gift Of Words

Words are FUN. Words make PICTURES in your head. Words can make you SMILE or LAUGH. Words can CONNECT you to others. Words can make your BRAIN GROW. Words are POWERFUL. You can have that power, my child, when you learn to understand words, and read words and write words. This is what we want our children to know. And by talking, singing, and playing with words with our children we can help them learn the power of words and give them a GIFT THAT WILL LAST A LIFETIME.

One way to play with words is with nursery rhymes and little poems, and children who grow up hearing those and learning those have a head start on gaining the power of words. Through poems and rhymes we help our children hear the different sounds in words, learn to enjoy words, increase their vocabulary, and stimulate their imagination.  Reading programs include rhyming as an important step in learning to read.

We’ve gathered together just a few of those nursery rhymes and poems for you to use with your children. Many are about things that your child knows about or has seen, or seen pictures of– the stars, rain, going to bed, spiders, sheep, ducks. We’ve gathered a few, but the list goes on and on, and as your child grows you can continue to share poetry and sayings and songs with them.

How To Use The Poem Collection

• Read them to your children.
• Get them drawing paper and let them draw about them, (purple cows are always fun).
• Help them make up a book of them that they could illustrate.
• Make a poem cube — get a small cardboard box and glue one to each side, then roll the box. Whichever poem or rhyme came up on top, you or they could read, with maximum expression.
• Print them out to put in their lunchbox, or on their pillow.
• Print them out, and keep one in your pocket to pull out and share with your child.   If you make this fun, with lots of expression in your reading, before long, your child will want one for his or her pocket, too.

Over the years I’ve gathered lots of sayings and rhymes and poems that make pictures in my head, like William Wordsworth, when he remembers the daffodils in his poem I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud. And, like Wordsworth,   “my heart with pleasure fills,” and dances with the sounds and rhythm of remembered words, learned so long ago in an atmosphere of warmth and fun.

Words are FUN.
Words make PICTURES in your head.
Words can make you SMILE or LAUGH.
Words can CONNECT you to others.
Words can make your BRAIN GROW.
WORDS ARE POWERFUL.

Give your child the gift of words.