Showing posts with label children's poem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label children's poem. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 23, 2018

Better Than A Wishing Well...




 "I wish always we can be a family" 
I heard her say tenderly to her penny before she tossed it in the wishing-well...
then as we walked away she looked up at me and asked, "Janet, how can I make my wish come true?"

When you make a wish, my precious
And you want it to come true
Tell your little wish to Jesus
He knows what is best for you

Then the little wish you wished, dear
Does not fade into thin air
But wafts all the way to Heaven
When a wish becomes a prayer
 

© Janet Martin

Friday, September 15, 2017

What Are You Looking At? (if you are squeamish you may find one picture a little yech)



Sometimes during daycare I'm struck by the fact that I just said something I have never even thought, much less spoken, ever before like 
"Now Atlas, share your worms!" (because they all helped him collect them:)

The girls tried to show their worms by holding them between their fingers but 'Squirmy' wiggled much too much!!! 
I wish I could show you a play-by-play of one of them trying to keep hold of her worm!
Hunting for more 'treasure'
Janet: What are you looking at?
Them; A slug!!
What are you looking at, dear little child
Tell me what do you see?
A slug, a bug, a wiggly worm,
A cricket, a bumble bee

What are you chasing, sweet curious child?
With a leap and a dash and a crawl
A tiny tree toad, a butterfly
A beetle, an ant s-o-o small

What have you found, my pretty child
What are you looking at?
*A caterpillar, *a spider, a fly,
Now what do you think of that?

© Janet Martin

 *They learned that it does not work to fight over/tug-of-war with a caterpillar lol!!!
*Last week we watched a spider roll a fly in her web

And below, a little cuteness overload:)








Saturday, April 22, 2017

The Tale of the Unhappy Mouse

PAD Challenge 22: For today’s prompt, write a fable poem. 
A fable is a story that conveys a moral, usually told with animal characters.



Once upon a time a mouse
Unhappy where he sat
Thought life would be much easier
If he could be a cat
So he put on a coat of fur
And yowled his best meow
But all that answered him was gr-r-r-r
Woof-woof and bow-wow-wow
Into his little hole he fled
“I wish to be a dog” he said

He wagged his tail and tried to yelp
And beg and shake a paw
The other dogs thought he cried ‘help!’
And yipped and woofed ‘hurrah’
From every corner of the earth
 (Oh, what a sight for eyes)
With sundry speed and breed and girth
Came dogs in every size
Oh no, wee mouse squeaked in despair
I wish I was a great big bear

Then all that I would do is eat
And grow so round and fat
No dog would dare to snare my treat
No sly, old pussy cat
And I, footloose and fancy free
Would loaf in the warm sun
Nothing to fright or worry me
Hey, say?! Was that a gun?
To be a big, black bear I shan’t
I’d like to be an elephant

The children would laugh with delight
To ride way, way up high
No other creature would be quite
As big and broad as I
...but wait; what runs beneath my feet
A mouse! my greatest fear
They are so small, they peek and squeak
And then they disappear
A mouse you say....how can that be?!
 My, but I'm proud to just be me

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Beneath the Willow-tree



  


On evergreen-lined oceans
We wave cheery farewells
Teetering on the tabletop
As Neptune bucks the swells
Aboard a wooden vessel
Young sailors off to sea
Our ship, the picnic table
Beneath the willow-tree

‘Hang on’ we urge the younger
Or with a flying leap
We splash into the garden
Where the water is so deep
For we are champion swimmers
The front yard a vast sea
And we could sail around the world
Beneath the willow-tree

We climb the Alps, the hayloft
Dim and dusty made us sneeze
There, Heidi and her Grandpa lived
They fed us bread and cheese
But we needed to hurry
A war was on, you see
So we scurried back to safety
Beneath the willow-tree

...where the wind tosses its tresses
As seething waters rise
We stagger on the tabletop
And hope we don’t capsize
For the sea is full of monsters
And woe if he or she
Fell to there death in foaming depths
Beneath the willow-tree

So we cling to each other
SOS, we shriek and squeal
Praying for a miracle
We crank a phantom wheel
Then we hear Mother calling
Back to reality
Its chore-time; we drop anchor
Beneath the willow-tree

© Janet  Martin

It didn't look like much...just an old weathered table beneath the willow-tree, but it was a schooner and the tickets were free!

Yesterday was the first day of summer vacation for Victoria and already I've heard the words 'I'm bored'.uh-oh.

Often, in this age of gadgets and screens I find myself thinking,
‘Kids don’t play like they used to’. When we grew up our greatest toy was our imagination. I remember my mother laughing and shaking her head saying ‘what must the neighbors think!’ as we were transformed to whoever we saw in our heads. We didn’t travel much in real life but we all loved to read, these stories fueling our wildest ventures. There was nothing quite as adventurous as ‘playing pretend’…oh, the untold destinations in those words ‘let’s pretend we’re…’and beneath the willow tree the summer fell away as we carried out kitchen chairs if necessary and they became school desks and Big Sister was Teacher and we all were naughty students until she punished us with a sheet of math-facts and suddenly school was over as students stomped off in a huff. We traveled ocean-liners and trains, tamed wild ‘tree-limb horses’, became airplanes...and yes, sometimes we were so bored we thought we were going to die, but then we 'invented' a new game. Boredom's desperation fuels imagination!

Monday, February 4, 2013

Mothers and Fellers





It's Children's Hour at Poetic Bloomings

Mother tells me to clean my ears
To eat my greens
To wash my face
Mother tells me to pick up my toys
Be nice to my sister
And put things back in place

Mother tells me that worms ain’t fer pockets
And mother tells me
To let the frog go
Mother tells me I’m growin’ too fast
But I think I’m growin’
Awfully slow

Mother tells me to shush, baby’s sleepin’
But I was simply
Chasin’ my ball
Sometimes I think that mothers and fellers
Really don’t understand
Each other at all

Mother tells me to mind my manners
She tells me its bedtime
When it’s quarter-past noon
She says do your homework
Do your best, and remember
You’re gonna be a man someday soon

Mother tells me I’m her little sunshine
She tousles my hair
An’ hugs me real tight
She makes my favorite fruit cobbler for dinner
And she doesn’t scold me
When I snitch a wee bite

At bedtime she listens
And I tell her my thinkin’s
She smiles and tucks me in with my football
Well, maybe, perhaps mothers understand fellers
Just a weeny-teeny little bit
After all

© Janet Martin