We are still writing poems in my classroom even though April is over and May is here. This week we worked on poems for our mothers. If you are a mother of one of my students, stop reading now and save it for after Mother’s Day. You don’t want to spoil the surprise.
I love the beautiful picture book, I Love You the Purplest by Barbara M. Joosse. The watercolor images by Mary Whyte are amazing. The story is sweet about a mother going fishing with her two boys. The boys want to know which one she loves best, and the mother cleverly answers, “Julian, I love you the bluest. I love you the color of a dragon fly at the tip of its wing.” The other boy, Max, she loves the reddest, the color of the sky before it blazes into night.
After reading the book to my students, we talked about colors and what they can symbolize. Each student selected a color and made a list of possible things to use in a poem. There are some great resources for this lesson on Writing Fix. You can find a list of color metaphors as well as a printable form.
Specifically for the Mother’s Day poem, I asked the students to write about their mothers. They wrote some great poems. They typed and printed and painted a background for their poems on a canvas board. I think many mothers will be brought to tears by these gifts of love.
Momma,
I love you the pinkest
The color of a baby girl’s blanket
A freshly bloomed rose
The color of a small little piggy
And brand new point shoes
The color of breast cancer awareness
An October birthstone
The perfect pink for you ………
The color of your three little girly ballerinas
–Rhyan, 6th grade
I love you, Mom, the Greenest.
An emerald when a miner pulls it freshly out of the wall,
Leprechauns running around their pot of gold,
The grass when freshly mowed,
Lettuce from the sky,
The four-leaf clover on the ground,
The pickle on your burger,
The leaves you feel when you feel a tree.
I love you, Mom, the greenest.
–Tobie, 2nd grade
Mom, I love you the orangest.
I love you like the blazing sunset,
like the fire in my eyes,
like a melted orange ice pop,
dripping down my fingers.
I love you as orange as the way
your red hair used to look.
Mom, I love you the orangest.
Matthew, 3rd grade
For more Mother’s Day poems, go to our kidblog site. My students love comments.
Poetry Friday is hosted this week by Elizabeth Steinglass.
Reflections on the Teche 
Ahh, these are beautiful. Left me with tears in my eyes.
J. Esbaum
I don’t have time this am, Margaret, but will come back later for your students. I am so impressed with their images! Love that “pickle on your burger”! Indeed, their mothers will love these!
[…] at Reflections on the Teche has been reading I Love You the Purplest by Barbara M. Joosse with her students and working with […]
Oh they are lovely! I particularly like ‘lettuce frpm the sky’ Funny I should read the orange one, I just started a poem about an orange yesterday. Their mothers will love those poems.
These students’ mothers are very lucky indeed. Love Barbara Joosse books!
What great lines! As orange as the way your red hair used to look!
There are going to be some very happy moms on Mother’s Day.
I was tempted to ask the student to change that line, but when we talked about it, he said she once died her hair red. Now it’s black. I thought Mom would get a kick out of it.
Wow – what lucky moms, special kids, and a terrific teacher! These will be treasured.
Robyn, Thanks for commenting on the kidblog site. This site has given them a wider audience and done wonders for their motivation to write.
These. Are. Awesome!
Wow, these are so great!
Oh my! What mother wouldn’t be brought to tears by these colorful, sentimental masterpieces. I know I would.
[…] I guess when you have a tried and true lesson, and you’ve been blogging for 4 years, something’s bound to come back around. I did a Google search for images and came across my own Poetry Friday post from 2013. You can read more student poems here. […]
Do you have the list of metaphors from Writing Fix? I can no longer find my pdf or print out.