When life gives you acorns…make art and poetry!

Most weeks I work with my friend and colleague Carol over Zoom since we live in different parts of the state. So when we got to meet in person a few weeks ago, I was delighted to be gifted with a bag of acorns to explore with my students. The acorns where Carol lives are huge…and they have the caps that look like knitted beanies.

So, in honor of #writeout, a collaboration between the National Writing Project and the National Park Service, we got out the acorns and the hand lenses AND our sketchbooks to really study them carefully. We also read two wonderful picture books: Because of an Acorn by Lola Schaefer–a book about the interdependence of the ecosystem where acorns thrive–and Acorn Was a Little Wild by Jen Arena–a fanciful book about an adventurous acorn who after an encounter with a hungry squirrel preparing for winter, ended up as an adventurous oak tree.

And…we had to watch the wonderful video with Ranger McKenzie from Sequoia National Park about how oak trees drop tremendous numbers of acorns every few years…all at the same time in a process called masting, and that scientists have figured out that trees “talk” to each other through their root systems.

All this science and nature provided the perfect foundation for an art project inspired by Andy Warhol and the Pop Art movement. Today the first graders in my classroom used scissors, construction paper, oil pastels…and wait for it…white glue to create the most adorable acorn art. Scissor work can be challenging for young learners, and to add to the scissor demand I didn’t provide a template. Instead I showed them how to trim the square of paper into the shape of the acorn nut…and another square of paper into the shape of an acorn cap. A few students expressed frustration, but with some encouragement and insistence that they keep trying, all students were able to cut out acorns and their caps independently.

We added some whimsical texture with oil pastels…and then the most challenging part, they had to use white glue to attach their acorn pieces to the background we had assembled. Trust me, white glue can be downright scary in the hands of young artists! But with admonitions to use the glue sparingly, we were successful!

Of course we had to do some writing. Poetry seemed in order–after all this year’s #writeout theme is Poetry for the Planet and I was wanting to keep it short…so we attempted a first grade version of Haiku–a three line poem (without worrying about the syllable count). Here are a few first grade attempts.

J wrote:

Acorns are hard

cozy as fall nears

Spiny as a hedgehog

O wrote:

Don’t fall yet.

Squirrels will get you.

Crunch!

And R wrote:

Acorns look like a balloon that got blown by a man.

Acorns look like a man with a helmet riding a bike to the store.

Acorns look like a top that someone is spinning on the table.

#Writeout we’re off and running! We’d love to know how all of you are celebrating nature and the outdoors in your classrooms and in your lives!