On this first day of spring (or is actually the 4th day of summer?), I shared Raymond Souster’s poem aptly titled, “Spring” with the first graders in my class. I could hear them murmuring…that’s not a poem, it’t too short! This poem, made up of two short sentences, was perfect for this last day of parent conference week.

Our typical process with a weekly poem is that I read it aloud first, then students repeat the lines of the poem after me, and then they contribute what they have noticed. Today with this lovely short poem (maybe as short as our winter), I invited students to volunteer to read the poem aloud. So many volunteer readers at this time of the year, we heard the poem in voice after voice. (It’s about rain and roots meeting in a flower). Students noticed the two stanzas, the two sentences, a few even counted out the words. They recognized the science in the first stanza and the metaphor in the second. They even pointed out some phonics-related vowel patterns in the words. They illustrated the poem and added it to their ever growing poetry anthology.

After recess I asked them to write a description of spring using metaphorical thinking. Actually, we had practiced some of these orally earlier in the day, and they were so confident then that I asked them to write three metaphors for spring (on the hopes that they would be varied and more interesting as they pushed past their first attempt). I handed them each a large index card and asked them to write their metaphors. A calm settled, and of course a few students asked if they could write more than three.

I’m counting this as a success when not a single student expressed doubt or mystery about what I was asking them to do…and that everyone easily wrote more than one spring-inspired metaphor. I collected their metaphors and picked one from each child to produce a collaborative Spring Is… metaphor poem.

And on yesterday’s neighborhood walk I couldn’t resist stopping to take a photo of this flower beginning to unfurl–a metaphor of spring in a photo for me!

What would you contribute to this collaborative metaphorical collection about spring?