Monday, December 6, 2010

Christmas Cinquains


In our homeschool, we use the wonderful Institute for Excellence in Writing curriculum. We are in the middle of a unit on Christmas poetry. I didn't know if the kids would enjoy it or not, but their first foray into composing a poem went very well.

We began the unit learning about the form and structure of a cinquain. They have 5 lines and each line has a set number of syllables. 

Line 1:  2 syllables
Line 2:  4 syllables
Line 3: 6 syllables
Line 4: 8 syllables
Line 5: 2 syllables

Here are the results. I'm thrilled.
Ben's poem:
Christmas
Happy faces
Wonderful, Loving God
Who sent His Son to die for us
Jesus

Joshua wrote this:
Joyful
Time of giving
A star brightly shining 
Tis the night of our Savior's birth
Christmas

(and yes, he knows we don't know the specific date)
Rebekah:

Christmas
Baby Jesus
A large star brightly shines
Angels together in chorus
Joyful
Elizabeth wrote this one:

Jesus
A Loving Friend
Who gave His Life for us
Defeated sin and rose again
Hopeful
I love them all! 

The poems, too!!

Why don't you try writing your own Christmas cinquain?? I'm going to give it a try.
 

2 comments:

  1. Wow, I am seriously impressed -- both with their poems and with you, for having the courage to teach them poetry!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm definitely going to try writing Christmas cinquains! Thanks for the inspiration (and instruction)!

    ReplyDelete

I would love to hear what you think!