Recitations | Classical Enrichment

Our Recitations

The following is a list of recitations studied, memorized, and recited in Classical Enrichment. Students recite these in large and small groups. A number of them are performed throughout the year at Pillar Assemblies and the Fine Arts Festival. Copies of poems are sent home with students for memorization practice. Homeroom teachers also often use poems during transitions to provide more practice for students.

Kindergarten

AUGUST

Jack be nimble

Jack be quick

Jack jump over

The candlestick

Jack jumped high

Jack jumped low

Jack jumped over

And burned his toe!

SEPTEMBER

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep

And doesn't know where to find them

Leave them alone and they'll come home

Wagging their tails behind them

OCTOBER

Various Nursery Rhymes from Amplify Curriculum

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER

The Pine and the Palm by Heinrich Heine

Single fir tree lonely,

On a northern mountain height,

Sleeps in a white blanket,

Draped in snow and ice.

Its dreams are of a palm tree,

Who far, in eastern lands,

Weeps all alone, and silent,

Among the burning sands.

DECEMBER-JANUARY

The More It Snows by A. A. Milne

The more it snows (Tiddely-pom)

The more it goes (Tiddely-pom)

On snowing.

And nobody knows (Tiddely-pom)

How cold my toes (Tiddely-pom)

Are growing.

First Grade

AUGUST

Hope by Langston Hughes

Sometimes when I'm lonely,

Don't know why,

Keep thinkin' I won't be lonely

By and by.

AUGUST-SEPTEMBER

Table Manners by Gelett Burgess

THE Goops they lick their fingers,

And the Goops they lick their knives;

They spill their broth on the tablecloth--

Oh, they lead disgusting lives!

The Goops they talk while eating,

And loud and fast they chew;

And that is why I'm glad that I

Am not a goop. Are YOU?

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER

The Swing by Robert Louis Stevenson

How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,

'Til I can see so wide,

Rivers and trees and cattle and all

Over the countryside--

'Til I look down on the garden green,

Down on the roof so brown--

Up in the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down!

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER

One Thing at a Time by M. A. Stodart

Work while you work; play while you play.
That is the way to be cheerful all day.
All that you do, do with your might.
Things done by halves are never done right.

One thing each time and that done well,
is a very good rule as many can tell.
Moments are useless trifled away;

so work while you work and play while you play.

The Pasture by Robert Frost

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring

I'll only stop to rake the leaves away

(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):

I shan't be gone long.--You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf

That's standing by the mother. It's so young,

It totters when she licks it with her tongue.

I shan't be gone long.--You come too.

Second Grade

SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER

Something Told the Wild Geese by Rachel Field

Something told the wild geese

It was time to go.

Though the fields lay golden

Something whispered,--'snow'

Leaves were green and stirring,

Berries, luster-glossed,

But beneath warm feathers

Something cautioned,--'frost'

All the sagging orchards

Steamed with amber spice,

But each wild breast stiffened

At remembered ice.

Something told the wild geese

It was time to fly,--

Summer sun was on their wings,

Winter in their cry.

NOVEMBER

Leaves by Elsie N. Brady

How silently they tumble down

And come to rest upon the ground

To lay a carpet, rich and rare,

Beneath the trees without a care,

Content to sleep, their work well done,

Colors gleaming in the sun.

At other times, they wildly fly

Until they nearly reach the sky.

Twisting, turning through the air

'Til all the trees stand stark and bare.

Exhausted, drop to earth below

To wait, like children, for the snow.

DECEMBER

Dreams by Langston Hughes

Hold onto dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

JANUARY

Buffalo Dusk by Carl Sandberg

The buffaloes are gone.

And those who saw the buffaloes are gone.

Those who saw the buffaloes by

thousands and how they pawed

the prairie sod, into dust with their

hoofs, their great heads down pawing

on in a great pageant of dusk.

Those who saw the buffaloes are gone.

And the buffaloes are gone.