New Year, New Ideas - Time for Up & Down New York

With the whole toddler poetry thing coming to a standstill, I've moved on to bigger and better things for my little students for 2008. I've revised our curriculum... we will be reading Up & Down New York, a beautiful book by Tony Sarg from the 1920s. Remarkably, most if not all of the places Sarg featured back in 1926 can still be visited today. So one by one, Kelly, Molly and I will visit these 24 New York landmarks. In this social studies-based learning approach, we will also incorporate art, literature, science, etc. as it relates to that week's location. We'll also compare and contrast the then and now. I'm really excited, and hope the little ones share my enthusiasm for our revamped educational agenda!

Click here to read a review of Up & Down New York.

Click here to order Up and Down New York from Amazon.

Holiday Poem Time Again

I cant believe my last post was about thanksgiving poems, and now it's already time for winter solstice, holiday (hanukkah, christmas, kwanzaa) and new year's themed poems.

And TPCers out there with some great classics or contemporary finds to share?

Happy everything to one and all!

Toddler Poetry Community

Can this really be true? I just typed "toddler poetry community" into Google and this blog is the ONLY result that was returned. Now as happy as I am to be indexed, and to be an almost-sort-of a Googlewhack, what has happened to the rest of the TPCers? Just a few weeks ago, we were flooding servers! Demanding to be heard! And now, am I the lone person out there in all of cyberspace teaching my toddlers poetry?

At first this made me sad, to be alone in my poetry-focused toddler curriculum. But then I decided, perhaps it is too narrow to focus all of my educational efforts on poems of the day. And the kids are bored of it, that much is for sure. So starting next week I will be back with a more comprehensive educational agenda, perhaps one that more reflects the original city mom focus of this blog.

What do you think is the most important thing to teach kids? I'll take your ideas to form our first lesson plans here at Big City central.

Thanksgiving poems?

We had a great Thanksgiving, full of booze, good friends and family, camp, and food that somehow all turned out ok despite having to be cooked by me.

I really wanted to share some good Thanksgiving poems with the TPC, but couldn't find any that weren't overly patriotic, self-righteous, or otherwise not exactly what I was looking for.

So I ask you, my loyal TPC members - who has a good Thanksgiving poem to share? We'll post the best submissions this Friday for everyone to enjoy.

Thanks and as always have a poetic day! ;)

Special Spooky Poem of the Day

So, the poetry readings are back on at our house! Hooray!!! I won't say the girls woke up begging for a poem, but when I suggested I had a very good and very spooky poem to share with this morning, they were excited to hear it.

Here is Lewis Caroll's wonderful poem:

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you’re at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a teatray in the sky.

As you can imagine, this cracked-up my 2- and 4-year-olds to no end. They both love Alice in Wonderland too, so I may let them in on the origins of this poem and read an excerpt from Alice tonight for their bedtime book.

Coincidence? I think not.

So, I just went to http://newyorkcitymom.blogspot.com - a blog called out in my newly added blog roll, and saw that it was updated not once by TWICE on Oct. 29. A blog that I remind you has not been updated since MAY. A mere three days after I add her to my blog roll, and point out her obvious failing and that she never updates her blog.

Do you think THIS BLOG is the reason she started blogging again or is it just coincidence?

No poem of the day today. The kids are still in their anti-poetry phase. Philistines.

Some interesting developments

ok, so i just added a 'blog roll' to the blog! hurray for progress! thanks so much to AVL (aka EotP) for encouraging us to take on this feat. we did it!

and, in doing this, stumbled across something perhaps even more fascinating... the "person" helping me put up the blog roll (a blogger in his own right too!) thinks this blog about toddler poetry lessons is not as good as my "other" blog, which is about trying to teach my dumb-ass (yet loveable) husband not to be such a clown.

So, I'll let my readers decide do you like my other blog, instructions for mike, more or less than this one? you can comment here or there (you can comment anywhere)

I'll tally the votes and let you know the winner in the next few days.