Wednesday, September 30, 2009

There once was a...

Limerick!

Recently while surfing through our channel guide on PBS, I discovered something wonderful...The Electric Company is back on TV! It's actually an updated version and after watching the first episode we could DVR, I think it may even be better. It has some of the old favorite bits like the shadow people sounding out words. That doesn't really describe this, but if you are a fan, you should know what I'm saying, and if you aren't a fan, then just trust me :-)

But it's got some real characters with a short story running through it and phonics rules set to rap music. One of the favorites we've seen a few times now is the "Bossy R".

Anyway, back to my post title. The very first episode we watched had one of the characters accepting a dare to enter a limerick battle, but she didn't know what one was. Samuel loved the sing song rhythm so of course, I had to check out a couple books of limericks from the library. The first one is "There Once Was a Very Odd School" by Stephen Krensky with poems all about being in school. We are now ready for the second book titled "The Hopeful Trout and Other Limericks" by John Ciardi. We've also tried our hand at composing a couple of limericks together. We're not that great at it. I'm not ready to post one of our joint efforts yet.

2 comments:

  1. Hello!
    sorry It has taken me so long to reply to your comment on my blog.
    I think you are doing a great job to encourage your sons creativity & sense of wonder. He has a love of the natural word & you are clearly doing what you can to encourage that.
    One thought I have is that you could maybe begin skipping games with him ? Get a long skipping rope, tie one end to a gate post or some such thing & get him skipping, to develop his gross motor skills, get him into his body & build his confidence in that area.
    I hope that answers your question, if not, please do let me know.
    Kind regards
    Lynn

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  2. We love that Electric Company episode :) Great intro to limericks if ever there was one.

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