Pod Nine: Masks, a First Reporting Job, and Rhymes

Note: In Pod Nine, Grammy and Eli talk about their masks. Grammy talks about her first job as a reporter, and she reads a poem that is her and Eli’s favorite. Grammy and Eli have fun making rhymes together! The activity is to think of things in the world around you and make up words that rhyme! Please share this post! Click here to start at the beginning of the Poem Pod series.

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Grammy: Hi everyone, Eli and I are here, bringing you Poem Pods—fun poems for fun people. Nine days later, and you’d better believe we are smiling under these masks. Eli, do you wash your mask? You know, put it in the laundry?

Eli: Yeah, well, I don’t. Mom and dad put it in the laundry.

Grammy: OK. What does your mask look like? Describe it for everybody.

Eli: It’s just black and white, black on the outside and white on the inside. I got it at the Easthampton Municipal Building. They were giving away free masks.

Grammy: Mine has pictures of motorcycles on it. I like my mask. I put my mask in the laundry too. All right, today, I’m going to take us back to the Springfield newspaper. It was called the Morning Union back then when I started my job as a reporter. The boring part of my job was going to meetings and writing about them, and my stories got printed in the newspaper. The best part was I got to do really amazing things too—like watch someone have an operation at a hospital in Springfield and write about it. I passed out and the nurse had to take me in the hallway. I also got to ride on the scenic train in Holyoke and go to fairs like the Big E, and also to concerts and performances. And I got to interview famous people sometimes; I interviewed Bill Cosby once, back when he was funny and people loved him.

Eli: Who was Bill Cosby?

POEMS

Grammy: He was a comedian, once upon a time, and today’s poems are like comedy. They’re kind of silly. The first one is about time, and it’s called:

How Time Passes

Once you were wee,
And then you were three.
You learned to say, “Great.”
Then, poof, you were eight.

That was back then.
Pretty soon, you’ll be ten.
Time keeps passing.
Again, and again.

This next one is one of my all-time favorites. It’s called: 

The Silly Shoe

Once there was
A silly shoe
Made in a factory
In Kalamazoo.

It went out
For a walk
Down a long, winding street.
Before it realized,
“Oh, no!!!
I need feet!”

Eli: I like that one, Grammy.

ACTIVITY

Grammy: Thanks, Eli. One thing Dr. Seuss was really good at was thinking up words that weren’t real to make a rhyme, like imagining the Glunk—a big, bossy monster in my favorite “The Glunk that Got Thunk.” Or, like I used Kalamazoo in one of today’s poems.

Eli: That’s a good idea for an activity, Grammy. Kids, look around you. What are some of the common things that you see every day? Like, a cell phone, a tablet, a table, a chair, a vase. Make up some words that rhyme:

Like:

Cell phone, rhymes with Weaseltone, maybe that’s a whiny noise.
Tablet, rhymes with Fablet, maybe that means “Oh, great!”
And shoe rhymes with Kalamazoo.

Grammy: Hey that’s my rhyme.

Eli: Oops.

Grammy: But I really like weaseltone. That would be like, “Hey, turn down that weaseltone.”

Grammy: Okay, Eli. I think they get it. Those are all good examples. Kids, make up lots of silly rhymes please. Think of regular things, and then imagine something silly that rhymes with it. Post them with my blog or on my Facebook page.

Grammy: Also, please share any and all of these Poem Pods with other kids and parents you know far and wide. I just want lots of people to get to hear them.

Eli and Grammy: That’s the end of the ninth Poem Pod. Remember… We are smiling under our masks, and we hope you are too!