Poems for Kids (by kids)

For bible study, we didn’t have anything planned other than tea and eats, which leaves the evening wide open for disaster with the non-talkers. Anyway, it was quite fun, and a lot of conversation went on. As usual, everyone sat in their own chair and didn’t move, other than to get up and offer around a plate of eats, or when they left to go home. I wonder why they don’t move around? Strange culture thing, or tradition, or what they’ve become accustomed to. I theorised to Nick that perhaps the reason why people don’t really talk much is that they actually don’t have anything on which to report – in SA, we could get together with friends and tell about what we did in the day, or where we went, or who we saw, or get on to a deeper conversation about spiritual matters, but on the island, the first part would fall away because there isn’t anything to do, anywhere to go, or anyone new to see! So that cuts down on conversation topics quite drastically. But it was good and there was a lot of laughter.

For school, the boys are having to start writing poetry, and appreciating poetry. I thought this would be a nightmare, but they have actually taken to it really well, Caleb particularly. Caleb has dictated about six poems for me to transcribe now, and Aaron two. I think I will eventually have to make them up into some sort of mini scrapbook. An example of Caleb’s, if I can remember it, is something like:

A bird in its cage
Gets fed in its prison
And its beak isn’t strong enough to break it down.

Another one:

I wish I were a tree
Sweeping the sky high
Holding the clouds up in the air like a stilt house.

We are supposed to be writing one poem per week for the next four weeks, but Caleb has already more than filled his quota – yeeha! We’ll keep going and see what else comes out. We’ve started reading the Wizard of Oz, which the boys are loving. They really enjoy a chapter book, where they can get to know the characters and find out what happens next. There’s an interesting introduction to the book by Sonlight in their notes, about “how could Sonlight possibly use a book like this, filled with witches and wizards?” and their response to the question. So, in light of that, I explained to the boys the difference between the witches in the book (which are to be thought of as fairies – fictional), and real witches.