The poem
Quiet Night Thoughts (静夜思, Jìng Yè Sī) by Li Bai (李白).
床前明月光chuáng qián míng yuè guāngBright moonlight in front of my bed,
疑是地上霜yí shì dì shàng shuāngI wonder if it is frost on the ground.
举头望明月jǔ tóu wàng míng yuèI lift my head and look at the bright moon,
低头思故乡dī tóu sī gù xiāngI lower my head and think of home.
What it means
Li Bai wrote this far from home. Moonlight on the floor looks so pale he mistakes it for frost, then he looks up at the moon and misses the place he grew up. It is probably the best-known poem in China: almost every child can recite it before starting school.
Characters to know
- 月 yuè: moon
- 光 guāng: light
- 头 tóu: head
- 乡 xiāng: home village
How to practise it
Read the poem aloud together first, then write one line a day using the line buttons above the worksheet. By the end of the week your child can write the whole poem and knows what each line means. When it feels easy, set tracing to 0 and write it from memory.
More poems to print
- 春晓 Spring Dawn
- 咏鹅 Ode to the Goose
- 登鹳雀楼 On the Stork Tower
- 悯农 Pity the Farmers
- 江雪 River Snow
- 咏柳 Ode to the Willow
- 画 A Painting
- 草 Grass
- 鹿柴 Deer Park
- 寻隐者不遇 Looking for the Hermit
- 相思 Thinking of You
- 游子吟 Song of the Traveller
More worksheets
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