Home Geography for Primary Grades · Lesson XX · Unit 5: Rivers
20. The brook (poem)
Goal: Your child enjoys the poem and retells the life of the brook from the mountain to the sea in order.
You'll need
- The book open to the poem
- Crayons or colored pencils
- A long strip of paper (for a picture of the brook's journey)
What's in the book
A short, bouncy poem that follows a brook from a fountain in a mountain, past pebbles, children playing, blossoms and fish, until it runs to the sea.
The lesson, step by step
Read it aloud
Read the poem with a light, quick rhythm, like running water.
From a fountain
In a mountain,
Drops of water ran
What happened first?
Ask your child to put the brook's journey in order: it starts in the mountain, darts over pebbles, children play on its banks, blossoms and fish float by, and it runs to the sea.
Rippling over pebbles,
Hurrying to the sea.
Match the lessons
Ask: What did we call the start of a stream in Lesson XVIII? (a spring, its source) What does "fountain" mean in this poem? (a spring) Where does the brook end? (the sea, its mouth)
Draw the journey
On a long strip of paper, your child draws the brook from a mountain on the left to the sea on the right, with pebbles, children, flowers and fish along the way.
Say it with the rhythm
Read it once more together, clapping on the short rhyming lines ("fountain / mountain," "started / darted"). Ask your child which words sound like moving water: trickling, rippling, bubbling, rushing.
Afterwards
Read it again by a real brook or stream if you can visit one.