Poetry Friday is with Irene and Live your Poem
On Wednesday I presented to my students Amy Ludwig VanDerwater’s “Writing the Rainbow” poetry project. We were on the letter C for our poem-a-day writing, so we wrote crayon cinquains. The cinquain syllable pattern is 2,4,6,8,2.
Amy suggested this video of Mr. Rogers’ visit to a crayon factory. The kids loved it, especially when the crayons appear in the tray like magic.
I will share a few of our poems here, but you can go to our Kidblog to see more.
Erin’s orchid bouquet
Erin chose the crayon “orchid” and drew the picture above. I encouraged my students to use metaphor in their poems. Erin imagined that the orchid bouquet was a crown for a woodland princess.
Orchid
Blooming Flower
Wonderful Pristine Crown
Perfect For A Woodland Princess
Wondrous
by Erin, 5th grade
When Madison colored in her journal with the crayon “Cadet Blue”, she saw a sky before the rain. I love how the name of the crayon informed her metaphor.
Rainy
Cadet Blue Sky
Thunder Beating on Drums
Lightning Marching Through the Clouds
Pouring…
by Madison, 3rd grade
I randomly picked a crayon from the box of 24 crayons and got “blue bell.” Of course, at first I thought about Blue Bell Ice Cream. Then I did a Google image search and found bluebell flowers. I drew a picture in my journal using the blue crayon. When Lynzee saw my picture, she said “It’s a fairy skirt.” So I stole that and used it in my poem. This form is fun to work with because it makes you think harder to get the syllables right.
Bluebell
a fairy skirt
balancing on a branch
hang like church bells in the steeple
Ring! Ring!
by Margaret Simon
Go to Amy’s padlet to see more of this crayon color poetry craze.
Reflections on the Teche 
What a lovely poetry exercise – it can be so inspiring for young writers to discover that poems don’t have to always be about big ideas or sweeping scenes, but can lovingly celebrate something as simple and everyday as a well-used crayon!
Fun! And, wonderful poems……oh, to be a kid and make these discoveries. You have such a wonderful job providing the prompts and getting to write alongside. I love the fairy skirts!
Love every part. The poem by Madison for cadet blue is a marvelous metaphor, and your poem is so imaginative, those church bells! I think your students must have loved this, and I’ll show the video to the girls.
I love these – each so unique, yet connected by a thread of colour. Gorgeous!
What fun poems! They combine so much into a deceptively simple form with color and images and metaphor.
Another great example of how simple it is to show kids poetry and what they can do with it!
Sorry so late to this post, Margaret, but I really enjoyed reading about how you’re applying Amy’s NPM project in the classroom. Madison’s poem is perfect for Laura Salas’ DMC challenge to write a water-themed cinquain. Can I include it in this month’s ditty potluck?
Sure! Madison would love it. I have permissions from all my students. Since I’m off this week, I should really take a look at the pot luck.
Great! I added it to the padlet. Thanks. 🙂
WOW! Madison knocked it out of the ballpark!