Poetry in Motion

The great thing about poetry for very young children is that rhyme and rhythm are more important than any other factor. As someone who has tried in the past to write Very Serious Poetry, I can attest that worrying about meaning sucks all the fun out of writing poetry. Writing poems that rhyme, on the other hand, is lots of fun.

I'm not going to post my poems on the blog because I don't want them to get stolen. (Many of my lesson plans, class notes, and sample research papers, I have discovered, have been stolen and re-posted--some on other teachers' sites, some on term paper mill sites, so I've gotten a bit paranoid about my intellectual property). But here's a poem that can only be about a girl named Betty, and, in fact, can only be about our specific Betty.

A Poem for Betty by Mommy

B is for her bitty size
E is for her bright brown eyes
T is for her tensed-up toes
T is for her 'tuffed up nose
Y is for a sleeeepy yaaaaawn--
Put on the sleep sack
Sleep til dawn.