7 Winter Poems to Read to Your Children at Bed Time

If you're still not sure how to introduce your children to poetry then its time for you to try bed time. Here are a few short poems to try this week. Ask your children what the poem means to them. Ask them how the poem makes them feel. Ask if they like the poem or not. Remember, you can share your thoughts too. If your children are not ready to start sharing their thoughts, then

go ahead and share what you think the poem means. This may prompt them to interject. Below you will find 7 poems to share with your children. Leave it for the last thing you do with them and they will ponder it as they lay in bed. If you have any new thoughts on any of the poems make sure to share your thoughts in the morning. Share your experience in the FB group for others to see.

Winter by Louisa May Alcott

The stormy winter's come at last, With snow and rain and bitter blast; Ponds and brooks are frozen o'er, We cannot sail there any more. The little birds are flown away To warmer climes than ours; They'll come no more till gentle May Calls them back with flowers. Oh, then the darling birds will sing From their neat nests in the trees. All creatures wake to welcome Spring, And flowers dance in the breeze. With patience wait till winter is o'er, And all lovely things return; Of every season try the more Some knowledge or virtue to learn.

Listen to it HERE

A Chubby Little Snowman by Anonymous

A chubby little snowman

Had a carrot nose.

Along came a bunny,

And what do you suppose?

That hungry little bunny

Looking for some lunch,

Grabbed that snowman’s nose,

Nibble, nibble, crunch!

Learn the poem with hand actions HERE

Gingerbread by Louisa May Alcott

"Gingerbread, Go to the head. Your task is done; A soul is won. Take it and go Where muffins grow, Where sweet loaves rise To the very skies, And biscuits fair Perfume the air. Away, away! Make no delay; In the sea of flour Plunge this hour. Safe in your breast Let the yeast-cake rest, Till you rise in joy, A white bread boy!"

Listen to the poem HERE

Snow-flakes by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Out of the bosom of the Air,

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow

Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take

Suddenly shape in some divine expression,

Even as the troubled heart doth make

In the white countenance confession,

The troubled sky reveals

The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,

Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the secret of despair,

Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,

Now whispered and revealed

To wood and field.

Listen to the poem HERE

Christmas in Australia by Victor James Daley

O DAY, the crown and crest of all the year! Thou comest not to us amid the snows, But midmost of the reign of the red rose; Our hearts have not yet lost the ancient cheer That filled our fathers’ simple hearts when sere The leaves fell, and the winds of Winter froze The waters wan, and carols at the close Of yester-eve sang the Child Christ anear. And so we hail thee with a greeting high, And drain to thee a draught of our own wine, Forgetful not beneath this bluer sky Of that old mother-land beyond the brine, Whose gray skies gladden as thou drawest nigh, O day of God’s good-will the seal and sign!

Listen to the poem HERE

Snow Man by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Listen to the poem here with winter pictures HERE

The Bells by Edgar Allen Poe

Hear the sledges with the bells -- Silver bells! What a world of merriment their melody foretells! How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, In the icy air of night! While the stars that oversprinkle All the heavens, seem to twinkle With a crystalline delight; Keeping time, time, time, In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells From the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells -- From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

Winter Time by Robert Louis Stevens

Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,

A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;

Blinks but an hour or two; and then,

A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,

At morning in the dark I rise;

And shivering in my nakedness,

By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit

To warm my frozen bones a bit;

Or with a reindeer-sled, explore

The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap

Me in my comforter and cap;

The cold wind burns my face, and blows

It's frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;

Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;

And tree and house, and hill and lake,

Are frosted like a wedding-cake.

Listen to the poem HERE