Books with title AmblesideOnline Poetry, Year 3, Terms 1-3

Charlotte Mason said that poetry is an instructor of the conscience, and that children "must grow up upon the best. There must never be a period in their lives when they are allowed to read or listen to twaddle or reading-made-easy. There is never a time when they are unequal to worthy thoughts, well put; inspiring tales, well told. Let Blake's 'songs of Innocence' represent their standard in poetry..." and the result will be readers who demand the best, "the fit and beautiful expression of inspiring ideas and pictures of life."Isn't it interesting that modern research supports her in this. Research is showing that reading poetry provides a ‘rocket-boost’ to the brain that cannot be matched by straightforward, simple paraphrases. The research also found poetry, in particular, "increased activity in the right hemisphere of the brain, an area concerned with 'autobiographical memory', which helped the reader to reflect on and reappraise their own experiences in light of what they had read." AO students read the poems of Longfellow, Blake, Conkling and Teasdale in the 3rd year, a variety of poems which will give the young readers word pictures and ideas to reflect on and apply to and interpret their own experiences. The poems are also just lovely and worth reading for themselves. We hope you will enjoy reading them with your children as much as we enjoy sharing them with you. A word: Please don't analyze and dissect these poems. There is time for that later in your young scholar's life. Just as there is a time to simply feed your young ones delicious, nourishing food, and a time later in their lives to teach them the analytical details of health, nutrition, and all about the vitamins and minerals in their food, there is a time to just read poetry and learn to enjoy it. Year 3 students are still in the stage of simply enjoying the feast. Later they can learn about the analytical details. Don't spoil their appetites for poems by analyzing too young.

This Kindle book contains all three terms of poetry for year 3 of AmblesideOnline, including our selections for William Blake, Sara Teasdale, Hilda Conkling, and William Wadsworth Longfellow. The table of contents is activated for Kindle for ease of use.We have included short biographies of each of the poets, as well as brief information on how to use the poetry selections with your three students, and Charlotte Mason's approach to poetry.

Walter De La Mare, Eugene Field, James Whitcombe Riley, and Christina Rossetti are names which conjure magic and delight among those who are fond of poetry for children, including not a small number of children brought up in touch with their birthright of open air play, and cozy corners for dreaming over their books. Children already think and feel most of what they will come across in these poems, only they have not yet been given the words to express those thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Give your children the benefit of the rich thought-life and strong vocabulary that comes from reading good poems. Give your entire family a rich blessing and make reading these poems part of your daily lives. Share them together, and grow together in appreciation and enjoyment of one of the finer arts. Unconvinced? It is always hard to convince somebody who has never tried it that one's native food is delicious, but the proof is in the trying, after all. Give them a fair tasting, one bite (or one poem) a day for a season. If you struggle with them, find audio recordings and listen together. Little by little, over time, see if they don't change the way you see the world, sprinkling the every day with the sheen of poetry.

The poetry selections for AmblesideOnline (AO), year two, term two. The poems of Eugene Field and James Whitcomb Riley are hyperlinked- there's an active TOC for Kindle. Each poem is on its own page. Also included: how to use the poems for an AO or Charlotte Mason education, and some excerpts about poetry from Charlotte Mason's writings and the Parents' Review.

In 2001, the Advisory determined that we really wanted an anthology of delightful poems suitable for year 1 students (not as a replacement for the irreplaceable Milne or Robert Louis Stevenson, but an addition). In 2001, the oldest Advisory 'child' was 18, and there were several teen-agers besides her, all reared on CM's methods, including a diet rich in poetry. In my (Wendi's) family, we owned over 300 volumes of poetry. I asked each of my children who could write to go make me a list of favourite poems from their younger childhood days. Those who couldn't write yet could just tell me. Their lists were similar, in some cases, identical. Not in length, of course. The 18 year old included far more on her list than the 3 year old was able to tell me about, but both of them mentioned Wynken, Blynken, and Nod and When Young Melissa Sweeps the Floor, for example. I made my own list as well, and other Advisory moms and children created theirs in their own way. My children wanted to know what Auntie Lynn's and Auntie Donna-Jean's children had chosen. There were delighted squeals of recognition and agreement whenever I passed on a poem Auntie Anne's family thought should be included. Sometimes we had a bit of tussle at our house when one of the children wasn't finished making her list, but a sibling had gotten distracted while hunting up a title and taken the very book of poetry her sibling wanted over to a cozy spot to curl up with it and just read poetry for fun. Creating our poetry anthology remains one of my fondest of many fond memories over our years of work on AO.What we have here is the result "AmblesideOnline Advisory's poetry selections for year one students," but it is more than that. This is a lovingly curated anthology of the childhood favourites of the Advisory, and Advisory children. These are not just poems, they are friends who touched our hearts, made us smile, helped us see the world in a new way, helped us give words to what we were already seeing. They are part of our family's traditions (my oldest grandson quoted The Little Turtle for me when he was 3. It had been his mother's favourite at about the same age), and part of our family language as well- snatches of poems, a line here, a line there, come out when we need that 'word fitly spoken.' We fondly, dearly, hope and believe your own children will find many friends here to love and hold dear, to reminisce over when they are grown. From our family's hearts to yours, may you have as much joy in sharing these poems with your children as we have in sharing them with you.Other features:Active TOC! Foreword with information on using the selections. Each poem given its own page.