1. What appeals to children
Songs and poems

2. • Most children preferred narrative poems over lyric
poems.
• Limericks were the favoured poetic form; free
verse and haiku were not well liked.
There was once a man from Mars
Who liked to eat the stars.
One day he ate twenty
Oh, man, was he funny.
That silly man from Mars.
• Carole Cox

3. • Children preferred poems that had pronounced
sound patterns of all kinds, but especially
enjoyed poems that rhymed.

4. • Carl Sandburg "Was Ever a Dream A Drum?"
Was ever a dream a drum
or a drum a dream?
Can a drummer drum a dream
or a dreamer dream a drum?
The drum in a dream
pounds loud to the dreamer.
Now the moon tonight over Indiana
is a fire-drum of a phantom dreamer.
Carl Sandburg in Hopkins, 1982
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1819923

5. • Children preferred poems
with regular, distinctive rhythm.
• Children liked humorous poems, poems
about animals, and poems about
enjoyable familiar experiences.

6. • Compact poems
"ELEPHANT" by Barbara Juster Esbensen
The word is too heavy
to lift ...
ELEPHANT
He must have invented it
himself. This is a lumbering
gray word the ears of it
are huge and flap like loose
wings a word with
wrinkled knees and toes
like boxing gloves....
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/1819923

7. • Songs with short phrases and a large number of
repetitions.
• Action songs – song that calls for
movements, participation and dances.

8. • Lullabies – relaxing and calming, emotionally
appealing to children.
• Hush Little Baby
Hush little baby don’t say a word
Mum’s gonna buy you a mockingbird
And if the mockingbird don’t sing
Mum’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.

9. • Nursery Rhymes
• Hickory, Dickory Dock
• Humpty Dumpty
• Three Blind Mice

10. References
• http://ezinearticles.com/?Teachers---Poetry-
For-Children---Characteristics-and-
Examples&id=1819923
• http://www.helium.com/items/1402579-what-
makes-a-song-good
• http://www2.nkfust.edu.tw/~emchen/CLit/poet
ry_types.htm
• http://www.csmonitor.com/1996/0308/08111.h
tml