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Poetry for Children
Poetry Break #3

Mother Goose

Thirty Days Hath September

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November;
February has twenty-eight alone,
All the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting leap-year, that's the time
When February's days are twenty-nine.

The Real Mother Goose, 1944
(Scholastic, 1994)

Introduction
This is a poem from a 1940's version of Mother Goose. I was surprised to discover it in Mother Goose, because I had always thought it was a mnemonic rhyme to help you remember something (like Every Good Boy Does Fine, the EGBDF musical scale). I didn't realize it was poetry! Plus, this version is somewhat different from the one I grew up with, and that's always an interesting discovery.

Extension
One of my favorite things to do with Mother Goose poetry is to bring in a variety of collections, have children browse through them, and then challenge children to find multiple verses to rhymes they only learned the first verse of. For example, did you know that there are more stanzas to "Jack and Jill" AFTER they came "tumbling after?"