First Grade Writes Tree Poetry

Friday was the perfect autumn day- the light bathing the trees, and the fall colors glowing as first grade students along with their teachers and resource teachers strolled through the campus. Each group settled on a tree that beckoned them. Students touched the trees, breathed in the scent of the autumn leaves, listened to the sounds of the tree and observed carefully. The teachers then recorded students' descriptive words that sprang from using their senses to really know the tree. Students also generated similes comparing the tree to animals, other elements of nature or even objects. The last step in this process of creating a small group poem was to put the words together in phrases and then to order the phrases. As students and teachers read the phrases aloud a beautiful poem emerged. First lines from several poems are:

Rustling leaves sound like squirrel footsteps

A multi-colored rainbow from red to orange to yellow to green

Bark rough as a rock with veins like a person

Each tree has a tag and people can visit the Abington Friends Arboretum website, http://abingtonfriendsarboretum.org/,  to learn about the various trees. These beautiful poems will be uploaded on the site for each tree and then people will also be able to read these wonderful poems. The poems will also be part of each student's poetry book that will include all of the poems written by students in small groups and poems written by the individual student.