Poetry Friday round-up is with Rebecca at Sloth Reads.
As school winds down, I keep teaching. I haven’t pulled out a movie yet. I haven’t started packing (not significantly, anyway). I want to savor every moment with my kiddos and want them to enjoy every moment left with me.
On Wednesday, we held our annual Gifted by Nature Day when all the gifted kids in the parish elementary schools gather in City Park for a day of nature, learning, and play. This year our theme focused on fractals. Do you know what a fractal is? Here’s a collage of fractals in nature:
Fractals in Nature
To follow up on the learning from our day in the park, I reviewed fractals and provided art supplies for students to paint a chosen fractal from nature. Did you know that the Fibonacci series is a fractal? Of course, we had to write fib poems. I used this post by Catherine Flynn as a model text. I wrote a model fib poem based on a fractal in nature. Then sent them out to create. Here’s a gallery of art and poems.
Lightning
by Jasmine, 6th grade
Boom
Clap
The sound
Lightning makes
Spreading through the sky
Sharing its color with the world
Fascinating us with its beauty, but deadliness
Peacock Feather by Lynzee
Fib
Bird
Feather
Natural
Beautifully swirls
Fractal stares from a peacock’s wingby Lynzee, 3rd grade
Reflections on the Teche 
I often had students study fractals, and it is fascinating to discover those patterns in nature. It’s a lovely ending of your year, Margaret, poetry and nature!
“Fractal stares from a peacock’s wing” sounds ominous, doesn’t it? Also “Don’t go too deep into the eye.” Hypnotic poems from Mrs. Simon’s crew! Enjoy your last days with them, Margaret.
You know, I haven’t run into a fib poem since Catherine’s post. I love your student’s work. Boom! Clap! What a great way to start a poem. It’s so nice to see you are savoring moments. I admit I’m a little tired and easily grumpy. I’m going to have to find my “savor” mode.
These are so fantastic. Another poetry form I’ve never heard of. Thank you for sharing. It also reminded me of the picture book Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci. It is great.
Love, Love, Love this post. I have covered symmetry in nature with my garden club students. We discovered how the fibonacci sequence is seen over and over in nature. Love the poetry aspect! Kudos to you – so glad you haven’t packed it all in, yet! Your students are lucky to have you!
You have a talented group of kiddos. Thanks for sharing their poems with us.
What an amazing collection of fractals in art, nature and poetry.
What a wonderful May activity, Margaret! Your students wrote wonderful fib poems. It is amazing how the accumulating words (syllables) line by line seem to culminate in a powerful final line. Madison’s final line “Don’t go too deep into the eye” reminds me of the Great-Aunt Tanteh’s warning to Gisella in “The Old Country”– “Just remember — never look too long into the eyes of a fox.”
What a delightful way to end the year with your students! I also love the photos–wow!
Gorgeous fractal photo montage Margaret. I love fractals, and plants like the sunflower whose seeds follow the fibonacci sequence. Thanks for sharing these powerful eye-opening poems and art–your students sure put a good amount of thought into each one, and what an enlightening way to learn too!
Goodness, what a fabulous day you must have had! And goodonya for persevering to the end with integrity as a teacher. That can be hard, especially after the year you’ve had (but also the easiest, since always it’s the kids who are the best part of our job). I’m fascinated by the fractal-fib connection which I hadn’t made before. But why are eyes fractals?
Fractals in general are pretty much beyond my capacity for understanding, but this is what I found on a Google search: “The branching patterns of retinal arterial and venous systems have characteristics of a fractal, a geometrical pattern whose parts resemble the whole. “