Leslie Bulion’s “Knock, Knock! Who’s There?”

Reminder: PoetryTagTime is the first ever electronic-only poetry anthology of new poems by top poets for children. You can purchase the book for 99 cents at Amazon and read it on your Kindle or through the downloadable Kindle platform for your computer, cell phone, etc.

Previously: April Halprin Wayland

Next up: LESLIE BULION

Setting the Stage: Invite the children to share any of their favorite riddles or read a few riddles from a selected book of riddles. Discuss how riddles work (question/answer; serious or humorous).

Poetry Performance: Divide the group into three smaller groups to read Leslie Bulion’s poem, “Knock, Knock! Who’s There?” out loud. The first group reads the first line in both stanzas. The second group reads the second line of both stanzas. The third group reads the final three lines of both stanzas (which go together). Once the poem has been shared, performed, and discussed, and everyone knows the answer to the riddle, end with asking “What am I?” and invite the whole group to shout out the answer, “the tongue,” after performing the poem.

Just for Fun: There are so many possibilities for following up this poem: researching more information about the tongue and how it works or digging for more poem riddles or experimenting with the limerick form that Bulion uses to create this poem. Offer the kids a choice of activities!

Poem Links: Here are key words that connect this poem with other poems in the PoetryTagTime collection:
Body
Food
Riddle
Questions
Sleep
Lost

Buy the book now, so you can share each poem along with the ideas and activities that follow here.

Next up for PoetryTagTime: J. Patrick Lewis


Posting (not poem) by Sylvia M. Vardell © 2011. All rights reserved.