Грамматические стихи
учебно-методический материал по английскому языку по теме

Learn grammar with classical verses.

Word order

Activities:

1. Read the texts carefully and comment on the grammatical form that is made use of.
2. Review your knowledge of word order in interrogative sentences.
3. Retell the contents of each poem in your own words.
4. State the central idea of each poem.
5. Memorize the poem you like best.

Where do bugs go?

Can you tell me where bugs go

    when it’s cold and starts to snow?

Are they all beneath the ground

   sleeping snugly, safe and sound?

Are they burrowed in a tree

  hiding where no one can see?

Did they leave this chilly land

  setting where the climate’s grand?

Can you tell me where bugs go,

  Or must I be a hug to know?

 Goldie Christenson

Who can say?

Who can say

Why today

Tomorrow will be Yesterday?

Who can tell

Why to smell

The violet, recalls the dewy prime

Of youth and buried time?

The cause is nowhere found in rhyme.

Alfred Tennyson

Morning

Will there really be a morning?

Is there such a thing as day?

Could I see it from the mountains

If I were as tall as they?

Has it feet like water-lilies?

Has it feathers like a bird?

Is it brought from famous countries

Of which I have never heard?

Emily Dickinson

Skyscrapers

Do skyscrapers ever grow tired

Of holding themselves up high?

Do they ever shiver on frosty nights

With their tops against the sky?

Do they feel lonely sometimes

Because they have grown so tall?

Do they ever wish they could lie right down

And never get up at all?

Rachel Field

Articles

Activities:

1. Read the texts carefully and thoughtfully.
2. Review your knowledge of the Indefinite Article, the Definite article and the Absence of Article.
3. Retell the poems briefly in your own words.
4. State the central idea of each poem.
5. Describe the feelings and thoughts the poems aroused in you.
6. Memorize the poem you like best.

A birthday

My heart is like a singing bird

Whose nest is on a watered shoot;

My heart is like an apple-tree

Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;

My heart is like a rainbow shell

That paddles in a halcyon sea;

My heart is gladder than all these

Because  my love is come to me.

Christina Rossetti

Gifts

Give a man a horse he can ride,

Give a man a boat he can sail;

And his rank and wealth, his strength and health,

On sea nor shore shall fail.

Give a man a pipe he can smoke,

Give a man a book he can read;

And his home is bright with a calm delights,

Though the room  be poor indeed.

Give a man a girl he can love,

As I, O my love, love thee;

And his heart is great with the pulse of Fate,

At home, on land, on sea.

James Thomson

***

Everything has its appointed hour, there is

A time for all things under heaven:

A time for birth, a time for death,

A time to plant and a time to uproot,

A time to kill, a time to heal,

A time to break down and a time to build,

A time to cry, a time to laugh,

A time to mourn, a time to dance,

A time to scatter and a time to gather,

A time to embrace, a time to refrain,

A time to seek, a time to lose,

A time to keep, a time to throw away,

A time to tear, a time to sew,

A time for silence and a time for speech,

A time for love, a time for hate,

A time for war, a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes, III/1-8

Birds

The peacock is silver,

The eagle is gold,

The wren is a stranger,

The robin is bold.

The dove is a neighbor,

The blue-tit a guest,

The swallow’s traveler

And the owl a ghost.

The crow is black

For the great fields of snow,

And the swan is sailing

For the lakes of to-morrow.

Elena Fearn

Past and Present

I remember, I remember,

The house where I was born,

The little window where the sun

Came peeping in at morn;

He never came a wink too soon,

Nor brought too long day,

Buy now, I often wish the night

Had borne my breath away!

I remember, I remember,

The roses, red and white,

The vi’lets and lily-cups,

Those flowers made of light!

The lilacs where the robin built,

And where my brother set

The laburnum on his birthday,-

The tree is living yet.

Number of Nouns

Activities:

1. Read the texts carefully and comment on the grammatical form often made use of.
2. Revise the Plural of Nouns
3. Retell the poems briefly in our own words.
4. State the central idea of each poem.
5. Describe the feelings and thoughts of poems aroused in you.
6. Memorize the poem you like best.

Holding hands

Elephants walking

Along the trails

Are holding hands

By holding tails.

Trunks and tails

Are handy things

When elephants walk

In Circus rings.

Elephants work

And elephants play

And elephants walk

And feel so gay.

And when they walk –

It never fails

They’re holding hands

By holding tails.

Lenore M. Link

Picture-books in Winter

Summer fading, winter comes –

Frosty morning, tingling thumbs,

Windows robins, winter rooks,

And the picture story-books.

Water now is turned to stone

Nurse and I can walk upon;

Still we find the flowering brooks

In the picture story-books.

All the pretty things put by

Wait upon the children’s eye,

Sheep and shepherds, trees and crooks

In the picture story-books.

We may see how all things are,

Seas and cities, near and far,

And the flying fairies looks,

In the picture story-books.

How am I to sing my praise,

Happy chimney-corner days,

Sitting safe in nursery nooks,

Reading picture story-books?

Robert Louis Stevenson

Case of Nouns

Activities:

1. Read the texts carefully and review your knowledge of the Possessive Form of Nouns.
2. Recount the contents of the poems briefly in your own words.
3. Give your opinion of the poems.
4. Memorize the poem you like best.

Monday’s Child is Fair of Face

Monday’s child is fair of face,

Tuesday’s child is full of grace,

Wednesday’s child is full of woe,

Thursday’s child has far to go,

Friday’s child is loving and giving,

Saturday’s child works hard for living.

And the child that is born on the Sabbath day

Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

Nursery rhyme

Oranges and Lemons

Gay go up and gay go down,

To ring the bells of London town.

Ha’pence and farthings,

Say the bells of St. Martin’s.

Oranges and lemons,

Say the bells of St. Clement’s.

Pokers and tongs,

Say the bells of St. John’s.

Pancakes and flitters,

Say the bells of St. Peter’s.

Kettles and pans,

Say the bells of St. Anne’s.

You owe me ten shillings,

Say the bells of St. Helen’s.

The Adjective

Activities:

1. Read the texts and comment on the grammatical form that is made use of.
2. Revise the degrees of comparison of Adjectives and Adverbs.
3. Retell the poems briefly in your own words.
4. Match these English proverbs with the Russian ones. Then enlarge upon the subjects.

5. Memorize the poem you like best

The Riddling Knight

O, what is louder than a horn?

And what is sharper than a thorn?

What is heavier than the lead?

And what is better than the bread?

O, what is higher than the tree?

And what is deeper than the sea?

O, shame is louder than a thorn,

And hunger is sharper than a thorn.

And sin is heavier than the lead,

And the blessing’s better than the bread.

O, Heaven is higher than the tree,

And love is deeper than the sea.

 From ‘A Collection of Rhymes and Poems’

(Chosen by James Reeves)

Out of Sight, out of Mind

The oftener seen, the more I lust,

The more I lust, the more I smart,

The more I smart, the more I trust,

The more I trust, the heavier heart,

The heavy heart breeds mind unrest;

The rarer seen, the less in mind,

The lest in mind, the lesser pain, less grief I find,

The lesser grief, the greater gain,

The greater grain, the merrier I,

Therefore I wish thy sight to fly.

The further off, the more I joy,

The more I joy, the happier life,

The happier life, less hurts annoy,

The lesser hurts; pleasure most rife;

Such pleasures rife shall I obtain

When distance doth depart us twain.

Barnabe Googe

The Verb

The Present Continuous Tense

Activities:

1. Read the text and comment on the grammatical form made use of.
2. Review your knowledge of the Present Continuous Tense
3. Retell the poems briefly in your own words
4. State the central idea of each poem
5. Memorize the poem you like best

In the Dark

I’m talking to a rabbit …

I’m talking to a sun …

I think I am a hundred –

I am one.

I’m lying in a forest …

I’m lying in a cave …

I’m talking to a dragon …

I’m brave.

I’m lying on my left side …

I’m lying on my right …

(Heigh-ho!)

Good-night.

1. A. Milne

Autumn

The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing.

The boughs are sighing, the plate flowers are dying.

And the year

On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,

Is lying.

The chill rain is falling, the night worm is crawling.

The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling

For the year.

Percy Bysshe Shelly

Present Perfect Tense

Activities:

1. Read the text and comment on the grammatical form made use of.
2. Review your knowledge of the Present Perfect Tense
3. Retell the poems briefly in your own words
4. State the central idea of each poem

The Birthday Child

Everything’s been different

All day long.

Lovely things have happened,

Nothing has gone wrong.

Nobody has scolded me,

Everyone has smiled.

Isn’t it delicious

To be a birthday child?

In the Dark

I’ve had mu supper,

And had my supper,

And had my supper and all;

I’ve heard the story

Os Cinderella,

And how she went to the ball;

I’ve cleaned my teeth,

And I’ve said my prayers,

And I’ve cleaned and said them right;

And they’ve all of them been

And kiss me lots,

The’ve  all of them said ‘Good night.’

A.A. Milne

The Passive Voice

Activities:

1. Read the text and comment on the grammatical form made use of.
2. Review your knowledge of the Passive Voice
3. State the central idea of each poem
4. Give your opinion of the poems

The Planets

The moon is made of silver,

The Sun is made of gold,

And Jupiter is made of tin,

So the ancients told.

Venus is made of copper,

Saturn is made of lead,

And Mars is made of iron,

So the ancients said.

But when the earth was made of

Very long ago

The ancients never told us

Because they didn’t know.

Eleanor Farjeon

***

What are little boys  made of, made of?

What are little boys  made of?

Frogs and snails

And puppy-dogs’ tails,

That’s what little boys are made of.

What are little girls  made of, made of?

What are little girls made of?

Sugar and spice

And all things nice,

That’s what little girls are made of.

What are young men made of, made of?

What are young men made of?

Sights and leers

And crocodile tears,

That’s what young men are made of.

What are young women made of, made of?

What are young men made of?

Ribbons and laces

And sweet pretty faces,

That’s what young women are made of.

Nursery rhyme