Poetry is held up as a special literary style, a skill that doesn’t come easily to many of us. We admire the brilliance of those who can not only rhyme the ends of their lines, but also keep a consistent rhythm throughout the entire piece. At the same time, poetry can be a little beyond our interests too. But on National Bad Poetry Day (August 18), we are all invited to create our own rhymes, or not, as we make up all the bad poetry that we can come up with. Our kids will have a blast with this one. And with the goal to create the worst poetry, how can any of us fail?
Where to start?
Since we all end up having to talk to people most days, we can start with our everyday communication. Parents can give instructions in rhyme. Anyone can come up with a silly good morning rhyme, especially without the need to be any good at it. You could even rap your bad poetry. Your kids might giggle and beg you to do it again, or they may groan and beg you to stop. Either way, we will have made some kind of impression. More importantly, we will have laughed together, and that’s always good.
One way to come up with rhymes is to use a familiar song, but change up some of the words to match your life or to line up with your activities. My husband likes to replace a line from the holiday song, “Walkin’ In a Winter Wonderland”. Instead of saying, “Later on, we’ll conspire as we dream by the fire,” he sings, “Later on, we’ll perspire as we sit in the fire.” And it makes everyone laugh. So maybe try to change a line or two of a song, and see if you can make up a new poetic disaster. Remember, this is National Bad Poetry Day.
Signing Fun in your bad poetry
And as you rhyme, you can use rhyming signs. Here are a few suggestions that have instructions in our Signing Time Dictionary. Maybe they can give you a start in your bad poetry plans.
Here’s a cheery set: fun, sun, and run.
Or rhyme for your activities with stay and play or hike and bike.
We have some nature rhymes like bee and tree or rug and bug.
And we can rhyme the words who and you and blue and glue.
Can we use good poetry?
Your little ones can enjoy some of our nursery rhyme shows once they’re sick of our bad poetry efforts. Nursery rhymes are usually considered quite good poetry. But maybe the contrast between good poetry and bad poetry could be part of our National Bad Poetry Day learning.
Good poetry helps our kids with language development and a love for beautiful wording. So maybe we could sneak some good poetry into our National Bad Poetry Day with some fun children’s poetry books or nursery rhymes.
You can watch our nursery rhyme shows on any device with your My Signing Time digital subscription. Want to try out a digital subscription? You can try it with a 14-day free trial right here!
Got any Bad Poetry lines for us?