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Can you tell me if any of the poems in Preparing are scheduled to be memorized? If so, which ones? I wanted to print and laminate any that are.

Also, my children are really struggling with the writing portion of the poetry. We have memorized poems before, but not done much writing. To have to try to have the end rhyme and correct # of syllables didn't come easy to them and one almost cried. Any ideas of how to ease them into it without doing it for them? I wrote my own version and shared it, but then they wanted to copy mine and even given a lot of time couldn't write their own.

Thanks for your help! It is going well overall. I am able to do Beyond with ds while the others do Preparing. They especially like Draw Write Now and the science.

The PHFHG daily plans have dc memorize 1 poem of their choice each 12 week term, so it will depend which poem your child best connects with and chooses to memorize. We LOVED this part of the plans - well, really all of PHFHG! Enjoy!

In Christ,
Julie

Hang in there with the poetry. It really is wonderful the way it leads the dc along in writing their own poetry. It can be challenging especially if you haven't studied rhythm and rhyme before. Since it is new for your dc, it will take them some time to get the feel for it. I would help them along as much as necessary at first. I like your idea of doing your own sample for them to see. You could even all work together on the first few weeks helping them get the feel of how it's done. You could brainstorm together for ending words and rhymes. You could count out the meter together and adjust as necessary. When you are done, you'll have one poem and each of your dc can copy that one poem that you all worked on together. I'm thinking we may have done this at the beginning of Preparing. As the weeks progressed though, my dc became so much more confident and wrote some lovely poems. I was just looking through their notebooks the other day as I was packing it away and enjoyed reading the poems they created. I never thought my ds especially would be able to do this, but he really wrote some nice poems. He's no Longfellow, but they were nice. My dd amazed me with some of what she wrote. She seemed to have a flair for poetry. So keep pressing on and help them be successful. They'll end up getting a lot out of the poetry writing and in the end, you will probably be surprised at the wonderful poets you have.

I want to add that not all of the creative writing assignments involve writing a poem. Some of the assignments are prose and not all of the poetry assignments involve meter and rhyme. We just finished Unit 7 and this week's assignment had my daughter finishing 8 lines of poetry based on the original poem, BUT she was not required to use rhyme or meter. I went over the assignment with and set her loose and even though she balked at first she finished the assignment in a reasonable amount time and it she did a pretty good job. It did not rhyme or follow the original meter, but she was able to express her ideas and thoughts coherently and pleasantly.

Here is her finished work:

I saw dogs and cats
Running before my eyes
And many trees and bushes
That I had never seen before.

I saw the streets and sidewalks
And more rooftops than I could count
The block walls hide the garden,
With children playing about.

I think that this is meant to be a gradual process, and yes, I did help her more with earlier assignments, but she seems do be gaining confidence as the weeks go by. I hope this helps.

I have to admit that the creative writing box was intimidating to me and my kids at first. But now we are half way through Preparing and my kids have really grown, not only in their creative ability but also in their confidence. Not all of the assignments are poetry, for instance, Unit 14 is writing a descriptive paragraph. I followed the guide closely and did not require my kids to rhyme or have rhythm unless specifically told to in the guide. If you are using Rod and Staff grammar you will also learn about writing poetry in those lessons. Rod and Staff also moves them slowly through the creative process as well. This gives them even more practice. But still sometimes it will focus on rhythm and then sometimes rhyming. Not until they have had practice doing each individually do they require them to do it all together at once. Keep at it - we have seen such growth in our kids in this area.

Also, each students gets to choose which poem they want to memorize. My kids loved picking out their favorite one from the precious 12 units and memorizing it to share with their dad and grandparents.

Stephanie