Poetry by the Pool

I'm trying to Homeschool with "enchantment". There's this Brave Writer Lifestyle that I've been attempting to follow for about a year now. It just feels so right!

We do some pretty casual schooling around here, but some of the primary concepts here are:

that education does not need to look the same as "school",
to follow the student's lead (study or incorporate what they are interested in), and
to lead with enchantment (catch their interest through shock, surprise, and wonder).

One of the first things we implemented a year ago with Brave Writer was "Poetry Teatime" and we love that. What girl doesn't love a fancy tea party with a few poems thrown in for entertainment?

This is how we did poetry in Canada.

However, I just haven't been feeling Poetry Teatime in Singapore. I'm always seeing people doing spin offs of Poetry Teatime, so I decided to try something new.

Introducing "Poetry by the Pool". Success! We will be trying this one again.

This is how we do poetry in Singapore.

I has some morning themed poems selected, but I switched to unicorn poems when the girls asked me to print them unicorn pictures that morning. The girls coloured the pictures while I read the poems. We were set up between the pool and the playground. Ms.I played on the playground and came back to share in the snacks. We talked about some of the descriptive devices used in one of the poems and the girls each tried their hand at writing a unicorn poem. Ms.E dictated her poem to me. Then everybody was allowed to jump in the pool.

You would think the pool would be a distraction, but it was actually pretty good motivation to keep focused on completing our lesson.