Hi,
My 2 sons need poems for a phorensics competition. This last year they memorized "Jest Fore Christmas" by Eugene Field. My son had a wonderful time memorizing it and it went beautifully. Looking for a fun, challenging poem for this year. Any suggestions? Thank you in advance!

Tin, here are a couple of websites that might help you:

[www.mtcc.com] />
[www.poetryzone.ndirect.co.uk] />

Les

How old is a first-grader? Can someone explain the US education system for us ignorant Brits, please. We have Key Stages 1-3 here (replacing infants 5-7=KS1, Juniors 8-11 (KS 2 ) and secondary school (11-16 = KS3. Post 16, it's A-level students and then undergraduates if they haven't fled inot the world of employment.

And what is a phorensics competition?

Marian, children here in the states generally begin school at age 5-6. The first year of school is Kindergarten. Grade one begins the next year, so a 1st grader would be 6-7. Students are usually promoted every year, so a 7th grader would be 12-13, and a 12th grader 17-18.

Les

So knock one off the British year group.
Marian, KS3 finishes at the end of Yr9 with SATS. Strictly speaking, and mostly we don't, GCSE's cover KS4.

Thanks, Les and Linda - I never could get the top end of our system quite right because we stop thinking of SATs when we get to GCSEs and SATS go with Key Stages somehow.

Poems for a 6-7 year old which are fun and challenging to learn would have to be Edward Lear's for me - from the Owl and the Pussycat to things like The Jumblies, the Yonghy Bonghy Bo (not sure of the spelling) or The Aknond of Swat if you want a real challenge. Or possibly Kipling's Smuggler's Song or Walter de la Mere's The Listeners.

Or some thing of Spike Milligan's stuff, "In the ning nong nang" for instance.