r e c i t a t i o n

"You cannot begin to train a child's taste too soon. Just as in showing pictures, "To withhold good pictures from children because we thoughtlessly conclude them to be incapable of noticing anything but grandness of colour, is to despise them, to value them too lightly," so with poetry you must believe that a child is capable of enjoying and admiring the very best, if only you show him how to begin. You must let him see that you yourself delight in well chosen epithets and true pieces of word painting; you must let him feel that you only care for poems which put a pleasant thought into your mind or a pleasant picture before your eyes; you must let him realize that when you go with him for a country walk, you can add a charm to the brook or the meadow, or the oak tree, or the wild rose, by a familiar quotation, and his taste will not be long in forming itself." -Mrs. J. G. Simpson, The Parents' Review

"Try a single piece over with the author's markings and suggestions, and you will find there is as much difference between the result and ordinary reading aloud as there is in a musical composition played with and without the composer's expression marks. I hope that my readers will train their children in the art of recitation; in the coming days, more even than in our own will it behoove every educated man and woman to be able to speak effectively in public; and, in learning to recite you learn to speak." -Charlotte Mason

And so begins the exposure to classic poetry. Our homeschool group has chosen to focus on one piece a month as an opportunity for recitation. Our first poem to be memorized was from Robert Louis Stevenson's, "A Child's Garden of Verses" entitled "The Rain." We read it several times. He listened intently. I wrote it on our blackboard and illustrated it with images from the poem. He visited it again and again. And proudly, he recited it to his elders. Simply delightful.

You can find the amazing blackboard + chalk set I used HERE. Waldorfsupplies.com carries high quality, beautiful learning materials. I absolutely adore this blackboard and these quality pieces of colored chalk. They look stunning. They have been enjoyable as both a tool for display as well as a tool for creating art.