Poetry with Preschoolers and Elders

(PHOTO: Michael Hagedorn) ACE Preschool and New York 
Memory Center performing poetry

EDITOR'S NOTE: This blog post and photo appear courtesy of Gary Glazner, founder of the Alzheimer's Poetry Project

One of the absolute delights of working with the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project is bringing preschool students together with elders living with memory loss to perform and create poems.

Since 2012, I have been working with ACE Preschool and New York Memory Center (NYMC) in Brooklyn. Last year’s class performed poetry at the ACE Preschool graduation ceremony. (See performance)

I teach the young knowledge seekers to perform poetry. After they learn a poem, we then go downstairs to meet our neighbors at the NYMC.

Now when I arrive to do a session, the people who are navigating memory loss will ask me, “Where are the kids? Go get the kids!” These are people living with Alzheimer’s disease who so strongly remember the students’ visits that they say to me, “Don’t come without the kids!”

Here is a poetry lesson idea in the form of a recipe. It is adapted from my upcoming book, Dementia Arts: Celebrating Creativity in Elder Care (Health Professionals Press).

Recipe

Tio Gary’s Old-Timey Word Game

Ingredients:

2 hands

1 happy face

1 big mouth

Instructions:

This is a poem, or as we often say, when working with preschool kids, a game with words. It is a simple lesson on saying “hello.” Begin by saying: “We are going to play a game. I am going to say a word and I want you to say what I say. I say ‘it’! You say ‘it’! Ready? Please let me see your eyes when you are ready. Look at me so I know you are listening and ready. Good! Good! I say ‘it,’ then you say ‘it.’ Here we go.” We perform the poem using a “call and response” method, where the session leaders say a word or line of poetry and have the group echo it back.

At a certain point in every class with preschool kids I say, “cheese burger.”

For some reason this makes everyone laugh. At various times throughout the performance of the “Hello” poem, I will blast in with a hearty shout of “cheese burger!” Or I will growl or howl “cheese burger” like a dog.

Here’s the “Hello” poem:

Hello

Gary Glazner

It’s time to say hello!

hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.

These are my hands

that wave in the air!

These are my hands

that point to the sky!

These are my hands

I wave them high!

hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.

hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.

These are my hands

that wave in the air!

These are my hands

that point to the sky!

These are my hands

I wave them high!

hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.

hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.

Good morning, everybody!

It’s a good, good day!

hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello.


Writers of all ages are invited to submit guest posts on intergenerational issues to our Together Blog. Here are the submission guidelines.