It’s no surprise that at Bonkers Beat we LOVE music. Along with a beat and some fun instruments, music often includes lyrics or can be based around poems. For children’s songs these rhyming words focus on a message or a subject that they can relate to, escape within, express feelings through or simply enjoy.
On Tuesday 21 March, World Poetry Day takes place offering a special time to focus on poetry in early childhood education.
Children love rhymes, but there’s also three amazing ways that poetry impacts children’s development.
1. Poetry for memory and language
Poetry is closely linked with recognising and memorising patterns both audibly and visually – that is, through both listening to the sound of poems being read and through reading them on paper firsthand. This style of information processing can also be helpful when children are learning maths and new languages.
2. Poetry for emotional development
By producing sounds and beats, poems allow even very young babies and children to experience language and storytelling on a less cognitive and more emotional level. Some studies also show that poetry contributes to building resilience in children and expanding their capacity to experience and understand emotions.
3. Poetry for physical development
Clapping, turning around, hands up in the air – many poems and rhymes work alongside simple, fun physical movement, much like music. At Bonkers Beat many if not all of our poems and songs have movements to go along with them that not only improve children’s understanding of the content but get the blood flowing!
These are just a few of the benefits of poetry for children. One of the most simple and convincing reasons to make sure you expose children to poems at a young age is the first thing we mentioned – children love them!
Head over to Facebook and let’s come up with some of the best poems we’ve used in centres!