Nursery Rhymes

I’ve been curious about the local Poetry Club that meets once a month for about the last year, but we’ve never been able to go – until this month.

Two days before the meeting was able to download the book, Poetry Bee: Rekindling The Lost Art of Recitation by Emmalene Beck (Who runs our local poetry club).

The beginning level at the poetry bee is Nursery Rhymes so I printed out the 25 nursery rhymes and taped them onto 3 x 5 cards and then started sharing them with my kids. It was so much fun.  It is amazing when Inspire,not Require works. Isaac sat down and read all 25 and then asked me to quiz him. Wow!

My kids are not new to memorizing, we have been memorizing scriptures since we started homeschooling 7 years ago. During devotional we had a practice session on scriptures that we have been practicing for years and realized that we know the references at the end as it fits into the rhythm of the verse, but we rely heavily on the picture and the first couple of words to repeat the scripture.

We invited our neighbors, the “Groesbeck’s”, over for the afternoon and shared with them the nursery rhymes. It was so much fun. I would have some kids stand up to act out the nursery rhyme and they all had a lot of fun. Watching “jack and jill” tumble off the couch, “the cat” frighten “the mouse” and “the kings men and their horses” try to fix(or destroy) humpty dumpty was very entertaining.

The best one however, was so spontaneous, and so perfect. I didn’t tell the kids which nursery rhyme was coming up, I just chose people and positioned them, so I had 3 girls (L, MaryAnn, and S) sitting on the coffee table, and J (10 year old boy) sitting next to me. Even before I began reading, Isaac figured out what I was doing, and started to snicker. I read, “Georgie Porgie, Puddin’ and Pie, kissed the girls”. J starts flippin out, “eww, grosss, now way” but a blur from across the room jumps up and plants a kiss right on L. It was my 6 year old, Kevin! We started to laugh, while J is still complaining about the grossness of kisssing his own sisters, and my little 4 year old. Next thing I know, Kevin jumps up again, and Kisses S. Their Mom is laughing, and saying “it’s a good thing your Dad isn’t here.”

 

Then in the middle of all the chaos, I hear crying. Little MaryAnn is sitting in between these 2 girls, crying, because she didn’t get kissed. So I encourage Kevin to kiss her also. Then I look back down at the nursery rhyme and realize, she was right on cue, Georgie Porgie “made them cry”!

What a great memory and so much fun! I might have to keep an eye on that boy of mine though!