Nursery Rhymes for Poetry Month

Nursery Rhymes are perfect for Poetry Month...

...and they're often overlooked.  

You know I adore glamorous free-verse poetry.

But Nursery Rhymes are plenty creative, too.  Let's look closer.  You can talk about:

• The classic poetic device, rhyming.  What is a rhyme?  (Two words with the same middle and end sounds)  Why do we enjoy rhyming?  (Rhymes fall "trippingly off the tongue")  What is a near-rhyme?  ("The clock struck one/The mouse ran down")

• Sensory language.  What did the cat and the fiddle see, smell, taste, hear, and touch?  Was it a warm and sultry night, or was it crisp and cool when the cow jumped over the moon?

• Fresh action words.  The mouse ran up the clock.  Or did it galumph, careen or sashay? 

Which leads to my favorite question:  Why did the cow jump over the moon?  A poetic answer might be to see what's over the rainbow...or imagine who lives on the moon.

Would you like to kick-start your poetry month with nursery rhymes, done up creatively?  Nursery rhymes married to creative thinking and writing?   You don't have to jump over the moon for it.  It's right here.

The whole kit and caboodle: templates for Humpty Dumpty, the Cow and the Mouse...and all you need for many creative lessons on Nursery Rhymes, and dazzling bulletin board displays.  The clock, the wall, and the moon--everything but the kitchen sink.