Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label winter. Show all posts

Thursday, March 18, 2021

Poetry Friday -- A Poetry Challenge

My students love Poetry Friday. They've never experienced it the way we did it in the past -- browsing for a book on the tall white shelf full of poetry, sitting with a partner or two, heads bent over the book, looking for just the right poem, practicing until it could be said just right, then standing in front of classmates to read with loud enough and expressive voices...and getting the feedback of laughter for the funny poems, or sighs for the beautiful ones, and always the finger snaps of appreciation.

Poetry Friday these days is flying through the interweb to a breakout room, pulling up Irene Latham's or Amy LV's rich online resources, choosing a poem, practicing, then flying back to perform from separate squares in the Google Classroom.

Last Friday, several groups chose the same poem on Irene's site. Hearing the poem over and over again gave us a chance to think about the meaning of the title in relationship to the poem. Maybe you saw it? The poem is called WHY RIVER SMILES IN WINTER, but the poem is mostly about the snow. We wondered why the river was smiling, and figured it was kind of sneaky, greedy smile, since it is gulping the fair snow. A casual "We would love to know why you chose that title" resulted in an explanation and an invitation to join Irene for her last winter poem which uses Sleigh Ride by Winslow Homer for inspiration. (Thank you SO MUCH for your generosity, Irene!) One student took the challenge with me. Here are our poems:

picture via wikimedia commons


Sleigh Ride
By: J.L.
For: Irene Latham


Here we go, very fast
Off to make the good times last.
Our sleigh is zooming,
Our fun is blooming,
Out on our wondrous Sleigh Ride.

No need to hide,
No need to cry,
As we ride our worries away.
Here we go,
Happy today.
Out on our wondrous Sleigh Ride.




SLEIGH RIDE

shhh
say the runners
sliding through the snow

smack
say the reigns
asking horse to go

ching ching
say the bells
on the harness and the sleigh

flap flap
say the wings
of the crows that show the way

peekaboo
say moon and clouds
thanks for coming out to play


© Mary Lee Hahn, 2021


Linda B. has a TIMEly post at TeacherDance for our Poetry Friday Roundup, and be sure to check in with Susan at Soul Blossom Living to share your NPM project and logo. She'll be doing the NPM project roundup this year because of some tech issues Jama's having. 


Saturday, April 28, 2018

Winter Memory



Life is not measured by the breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.  ~Unknown

Winter Memory*

When you consider the life
of another creature, it is is
often humbling. The temperature that day was not
much above zero. We measured
the cold by
the
frost on our scarves from our breaths.
We
were by the lake to take
winter pictures, but
we became fascinated by
the
geese in the water. After a few moments
of observation, we could see that
the cold didn’t seem to bother them. We had begun to take
our
photos when we saw it – goose breath
puffing in the cold air. Blew us completely away.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2018



*Mr. Wald, our classroom stool-repairer, provided the memory that became this poem.



Friday, February 20, 2015

Poetry Friday -- Sky Poem




Poem for the Golden Sky I See Outlining a Web of Winter-Bare Trees and Contrasting the Blue-White Snow-Topped Roofs When I Open My Eyes All Warm and Drowsy After a Nap on a Day Proclaimed to be Too Cold to go to School

I love you.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2015



Linda has the Poetry Friday roundup at TeacherDance this week.




Thursday, November 13, 2014

Science in Poetry



Winter Bees: & Other Poems of the Cold
by Joyce Sidman
illustrated by Rick Allen
HMH Books for Young Readers, 2014

As I noted yesterday, J. Patrick Lewis' anthology title says it all: "Everything is a Poem." Today we'll look at science in poetry. Upcoming posts include nature, history, biography and imagination in poetry.

Joyce Sidman's Winter Bees is the perfect book to usher in this year's first Polar Vortex. Every day, compliments of the TV weather reporters, we are getting a science lesson in meteorology. Sidman's book will answer questions about how animals survive in the cold.

Each of the dozen poems, most about animals ranging in size from moose to springtail, but also including trees and snowflakes, is accompanied by a short sidebar of scientific information that expands the scope of this book to topics such as migration, hibernation, and the shape of water molecules, and introduces such delicious vocabulary as brumate, ectothermic, furcula, and subnivean.

The illustrations are simply gorgeous. You will want to spend as much time with them as you do savoring Joyce's poems. Watch out for that fox -- s/he wanders throughout the book!

As you and your students explore this book and Joyce's others, don't forget to check out Joyce's website. It is a treasure-trove for readers, writers, and dog lovers.


Keri has the Poetry Friday roundup this week at Keri Recommends.


Tuesday, October 07, 2014

Fox's Garden


Fox's Garden
by Princesse Camcam
Enchanted Lion Books, 2014
review copy provided by the publisher

This newest book in Enchanted Lion's Stories Without Words series is magical and perfectly suited to being a wordless picture book -- it is the story of a fox who needs a safe place to give birth to her kits. 

The snowy nighttime scenes have the silence of secrecy as the fox moves towards a secluded house. She is chased by a woman and a man, but quietly observed by a boy as she finds shelter in the greenhouse. The boy brings her a gift but doesn't interfere. In the end, the fox repays the boy's kindness.

The quote opposite the title page captures the quietness of the story:

"On the fresh snow,
as in my heart,
footprints, traces."