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poetry

15 Mar

Beauty Within

Jennifer Rogers by Jennifer Rogers | Montessori Blog
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Mary memorized Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem The Swing effortlessly, through the natural absorption of story and song that is one of the gifts of childhood. Stevenson’s timeless collection of poetry for children, A Child’s Garden of Verses, has always been on the bookshelf beside Mary’s bed. It is also present in her classroom library. Mary’s mother and her teacher read poetry to her often, sometimes singing as they read.

©Bergamo Schools
©Bergamo Schools

When Mary was five, she was able to read some poetry independently. By the time she was six, she enjoyed writing favorite poems like The Swing in her own cursive handwriting. She often added illustration to her poetry, using the watercolor or pastels she found on the shelves of her Montessori classroom.

The day Mary recited The Swing for the first time at school, her voice rose and fell following the poem’s cadence. She smiled as she spoke, held her body still with poise, ease, grace, and confidence.

“How do you like to go up in a swing?” the poem asks. As if the words of the poem lifted her upward, Lucy swayed gently forward and back. She stood before an audience of her friends and teachers, but she was in Stevenson’s swing, radiant, joyful, fully alive and engaged in the world of poetry.

For the adults watching it was an event, a real performance, and a celebration of all that is possible when parents and teachers read to children.

Mary’s four-year-old classmate Jon was amazed. It had not occurred to him that a poem could exist apart from a book, or that song and poetry could be shared so wonderfully with friends. Sitting in the front row of Mary’s audience, Jon was mesmerized.

The same day Mary recited The Swing, Jon whispered in his teacher’s ear, “I want to recite my poem for you. Just you.”

His teacher tilted her head closer to Jon’s mouth, smiling as she listened. “I’ve never heard that poem before,” she said.

“I wrote it in my head,” Jon said, “for a long time.” He was sincere, earnest, as honest as a four year old can be with his teacher.

Jon was an unlikely poet. He was not yet writing independently. His weak fine motor skills and short attention span were, in fact, an area of some concern. “May I write the words of your poem on paper?” his teacher asked, “so you can share your poem with your family and other people who are not with us.”

Jon was elated. His eyes sparkled. His smile was immediate, and radiant. He sat in his wooden chair with his pudgy hands clasped studiously on the table in front of him. His teacher sat beside him, listened again, and wrote. Even when she asked him to repeat, the words of Jon’s poem never varied. A poem clearly existed, complete, in Jon’s mind.

I love the sun.

How it shines on me

     And it’s so bright

So children can play

     All day.

Jon’s delight was, for his parents and teacher, as refreshing as a spring breeze at the end of a long, cold winter. At four, Jon was impish, disorganized, easily distracted, and sometimes disruptive. His favorite things about his Montessori classroom were his buddies, lunch, and the playground.

“I’m always thinking,” he once said of himself, smiling but serious. “I forget a lot of stuff, though. The stuff I forget always comes back to get me in trouble.”

The day Mary recited her poem so beautifully, Jon could imagine what a poem looks like when it lives within a person. For a moment, Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem became real, incarnate in one of Jon’s best friends.

Mary’s performance and Jon’s composition offered windows into the inner worlds of two children. That day and those that followed also reminded their teacher that poetry can help organize a cluttered mind. Montessori children continually absorb the order and beauty present in their classroom environments. One special day of poetry made it abundantly clear that children will also absorb the abstract order and beauty present in fine language. Both children had been read to; both children felt encouraged, confident, and inspired; both children could re-create concepts of tone, meter, intonation, and structure ordinarily observed in mature artists.

The beauty Jon and Mary absorbed in their classroom exists within them. The simple forms of poetry held meaning for them that reflected and transcended both their classroom environment and the pages of the books they had enjoyed. Jon, Mary, and their many friends at school derive strength and joy from the language they have absorbed.

Filed Under: Montessori Blog Tagged With: beauty, children, classroom, montessori, performance, poem, poetry, song

05 May

Poetry in the Elementary Community

Donna Bryant Goertz by Donna Bryant Goertz | Montessori Blog
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Give the experience of listening to poetry by reciting poetry to the children. The guide selects short poems that he/she really enjoys from among adult poems, not children’s poems.

DSC_3252-largeThey listen to a particular poem the first time this month or semester. It is a short poem that the guide has thought about, listened to, and enjoyed. The guide has practiced alone saying the poem and has it memorized.

1. They close their eyes and listen again, this time for the sounds of the phrases.

They open their eyes and raise their hands to say which phrases were especially striking to their ear. “Which phrases make striking sounds, so that you want to hear them again?”

2. The children close their eyes and listen again for the phrases that make vivid pictures in their minds’ eye.

They open their eyes and raise their hands to say those phrases. “Which phrases make vivid pictures in your mind’s eye so that you wish to hear them again, to see those pictures again?”

3. They close their eyes again and listen for the ideas that are striking to their imaginations.

They open their eyes and put up their hands to tell about the ideas that strike their imagination. “Which phrases strike the imagination giving you interesting thoughts or ideas so that you want to hear them again to revisit those thoughts or ideas?”

The guide recites a different poem every day or so until the children have heard and considered ten or fifteen poems. These poems are printed on pages and left out on the shelf for the children to select from.

1. A child chooses poems to read as part of her work.

2. She gets help with pronunciation and word meaning.

3. She gets help with understanding concepts, ideas, or historical times.

4. The child goes outside to read the poem loudly across the garden to a partner.

5. The child goes to a mirror to see herself while reading the poem with full vocal and facial expression.

6. She sees how close she is to memorizing the poem and asks a partner to hold it and prompt her.

7. The child finishes memorizing the poem and tells the guide she is ready to recite it to the class.

8. The guide listens to the child recite the poem and offers suggestions for improvement.

9. The child improves the poem and schedules a time with the guide to recite the poem to the community, so that only one poem is presented by a child each day, and so that it is presented at a time that doesn’t interrupt one of the work cycles.

10. The guide leads the children in listening according to the three steps of listening above. This type of listening helps the children avoid applauding.

The child may decide to take the poem on tour to other communities.

1. The child schedules a time with her guide to leave the classroom to go around campus.

2. The guide practices with the child and her partner how to approach the gate, enter the gate, approach the door, open it quietly, close it softly, and stand and wait within to be seen by an adult.

3. The guide and child practice greeting a child who knows her in another community. This is done from a distance with a quiet smile and a discreet wave. If necessary the child puts one finger to her lips to indicate her desire to be greeted quietly and discreetly. If necessary she says, “Please wave to me quietly from your work space.” If children get up, come over, gather around her, the child leaves the room and returns to her own community.

4. The child and one partner, not two, take a clipboard, a schedule form, and a pencil to go around the campus and schedule a recitation with the other communities.

The children choose from among these poems which ones they’d like to polish for parent gatherings.

Filed Under: Montessori Blog Tagged With: child, children, community, guide, ideas, montessori, pictures, poem, poetry

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