Poetry Across the
Curriculum
Introduction: This poem is a fun way to introduce subtraction to pre-schoolers. It follows a familiar pattern, and children will learn to listen for the rhyme that gives the clue to the next number. The reader can pause for the children's response at the end of each line.
Ten Little Ladybugs by Melanie Gerth
TEN little ladybugs sitting on a vine,
Along came a butterfly - then there were...____
NINE little ladybugs skipping on a gate,
Along came a caterpillar - then there were...____
EIGHT little ladybugs looking up at heaven,
Along came a bird - then there were...____
SEVEN little ladybugs resting on sticks,
Along came a grasshopper - then there were...___
SIX little ladybugs flying near a hive,
Along came a bumblebee - then there were...____
FIVE little ladybugs sleeping by the shore,
Along came a fish - then there were...____
FOUR little ladybugs climbing up a tree,
Along came a turtle - then there were...____
THREE little ladybugs drinking up dew,
Along came a duck - then there were...____
TWO little ladybugs basking in the sun,
Along came a frog - then there was...____
ONE little ladybug sitting all alone,
Along came a breeze - then she was...____
HOME!
From Ten Little Ladybugs by Melanie Gerth, Piggy Toes Press, 2000.
Extension: Use manipulatives (bugs, stuffed animals, etc.] to expound on the idea of taking things away reduces or makes smaller a number.
Introduction: Talk to the students briefly about origins-- of their houses and communities. Until taught differently, children assume the things and land around them have always been this way.
An Excerpt From Mississippi By Diane Siebert
I am the river,
Deep and strong.
I sing an old, enduring song
With rhythms wild and rhythms tame,
And Mississippi is my name.
From ice and snow my life began
As melting glacial waters ran
In rising, frigid floods that found
A thousand paths to lower ground.
And where these many paths converged
Their channeled waters rose and surged
Down through the land, creating me--
A river, young and wild and free.
Time rolled along, and so did I--
A part of untamed earth and sky--
At one with reptiles, fish, and birds,
With mammoths, sloths, and bison herds.
A thousand years, then thousands more
Brought sounds I had not heard before.
The sounds were voices strange and new,
Now moving ever closer to
These waters that would soon reflect
The shapes of those who walk erect.
For as the human family spread
It reached my banks to lightly tread
These hunting ground, these fertile lands,
As primitive, nomadic bands.
They drank from me, used spears of stone,
And worked with tools of wood and bone.
Then came the dugout and canoe
Of Choctaw, Winnebago, Sioux;
Of Chicasaw and Illinois.
They honored me. I sang with joy.
From Mississippi, by Diane Siebert, HarperCollins Publishers, 2001.
Extension: Show a current picture of something in or around your community and contrast it with an early picture of businesses long gone or pasture land where a town now sits, etc. Teach that every generation has an obligation to take care of the natural resources for the sake of future generations.
Introduction: This poem can be used to introduce a study on our solar system. Without giving it away, ask the students to listen to the poem to figure out who or what is the juggler of the day.
The Juggler of the Day
by Emily Dickinson
Blazing in Gold and quenching in Purple
Leaping like Leopards to the Sky
Then at the feet of the old Horizon
Laying her spotted Face to die
Stooping as low as the Otter's Window
Touching the Roof and tinting the Barn
Kissing her Bonnet to the Meadow
And the Juggler of the Day is gone.
From The Sun in Me: Poems About the Planet, compiled by Judith Nicholls, Barefoot Books, 2002.
Extension: Show pictures and give some details of the planets in our solar system to the students. Ask them to come up with other descriptors, metaphors, or similes of the planets, such as Saturn, with her rings, could be compared to a ballerina in a tutu, etc.
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