This fall I’m teaching a six-week exploratory course on gardening to 4th and 5th graders. Six weeks isn’t much time, but we’ve already suspended an avocado pit in water, planted oregano, and brainstormed a list of questions we want to answer. Later today we’ll be planting potatoes and next week we’re starting herb gardens.
In addition to all these seeds sprouting, I’d like some writing to blossom during our course. A “things to do” list poem is a form we can collaborate on, and lends itself nicely to a short time frame. Here is a poem I drafted to use as a model.
Things to do if you’re a seed…
nestle into rich, warm soil
soak up plenty of water
swell like a sponge
split your coat
plunge thirsty roots deep into the earth
poke an eager stem into the air
sprout feathery leaves
drink up the sun’s shimmering rays
then grow…
and grow
and grow.
© Catherine Flynn, 2017
Please be sure to visit Kathryn Apel for the Poetry Friday Roundup.
Reading to the Core 
This pairs perfectly with Jane Yolen’s poem, shared on Irene’s blog, today.
‘swell like a sponge
split your coat’
#adore
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Love this, Catherine! So many fabulous verbs!
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How wonderful to do that group, Catherine. The poem, as Kat mentions, goes well with Jane Yolen’s poem too. The soil of a gardening class is rich indeed for writing!
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So great that you’re combining gardening with writing–love the model poem you wrote, especially the ending. Hope your seeds continue to GROW!
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oooooh, I love it! I would love to know what some of the kid questions are. I have some too.
Does watching seeds make me patient?
Does watching seeds make me learn to read signs of nature?
I hope you will share what the kids write.
I want to be in YOUR classroom.
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Ditto what Linda said! I want to be your student!
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I love this! Ruth, thereisnosuchthingasagodforsakentown.blogspot.com
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I love that you are gardening with your students. May you enjoy lots of fruits of your labor–both the edible and written kind.
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I really enjoyed your poem today. I just recently started my 2nd avocado seed. The first one did splendid. I was all ready to transplant it into soil and it succumbed to mold that I had missed for about a week. I was so bummed because it seemed to take forever to get to that stage! Ah well. Hopefully 2nd time around will go better.
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I love this! I want to use it for a mentor text with a group that I will be teaching Science. I just realized, too, that this school has a garden. Thanks for pushing me to this realization.
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How great that your digging in and getting dirty with the kids, Catherine—in science and in writing. Combining the two is bound to help those roots of understanding sink in! Love all the terrific personification in your poem.
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Wonderful class. I want to be a student in it! 🙂
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Love your poem Catherine! “split your coat,” is perfect. BTW which end of the avocado seed goes up away from the water, I’ve recently tried to sprout one but nothing happened. Enjoy the gardening, and thanks for all here!
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