Writing Wings For You

Marie Lukasik Wallace ~ # I LIVE Poetry – I'm passionate about life and writing and all things creative and poetic!

Tag Archives: first grade eyes


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I KID YOU NOT! It’s all about a Pencil

Magic Wand

Lead Soaring through the air

Making drawings and words appear

Erases bad things

Imagination blooms

Living things

New creations

Different world

Different you.

 

No pun intended “kid you not.”  My first graders were stuck, and I felt like they just weren’t getting this poetry thing.  Every once in awhile they’d come up with a poetic phrase.  (I’ve heard them say thousands of poetic things throughout the year.)  Now, when it really matters, they were stuck!  See?  It happens to ALL of us!   So, I said you can write about ANYTHING!  I grabbed a pencil and said, “Tell me about this pencil, first scientifically (so we could get that out of the way).  Now, my dear poets, let’s go deeper!”  And the magic began.  We NEED each other.  We deserve each other along this writing journey.  Sometimes writing is hard.  But with each other, writing can be magical…create “living things,” a “different world, a different you.”  I learned this from looking through first grade eyes.


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Poetry Through a Young Poet’s Eyes

 

Rain

By a first grader (no editing) 

Come on rain

It’s getting hot here

in the sun

Rain rain

Come on

I want to play

with you in the clouds

You make puddles

For me to play in

You make it quiet

You make it calm

Rain

 

I love how we hadn’t even talked about personification, and he was already inviting rain, like a friend to come out and play.  By the way, this poem is on the second day of poetry and done by a boy.   He did such a brilliant job, the other boys followed suit.  However, one must note we enjoy several poems a week all year long.

 

Raindrops

By Rylee Ford

 

Rain tickles your feet.

You’re splashing in puddles.

Kids beg their mommas

 To get their swimming suits on

 And go play.

It tickles your forehead.

Kids splash and play in the rain.

It goes down your back.

It tickles your back.

You giggle, you laugh, you splash.

 

Again, it showcases such freedom to interact with words.  This was also done on the second day of poetry and has a musicality to it. 

I wanted to showcase how easy it is for a six year old to write poetry.  How do we lose this sense of noticing and awe and wonder?  Of all the genres I teach, this is the genre that’s usually the easiest for the kids because they LIVE poetry.  Almost everything a first grader says is poetry.  I try to capture snippets of what they say because it is not only precious but sometimes quite genius! 

This exercise was done after doing some artwork that we wanted parents to see and I thought it would be cool to have some poetry with it.  As a teacher, I’ve learned to watch my world a little slower…a little easier…and try to see it through first grade eyes.

WHAT CAN YOU LEARN FROM A SIX YEAR OLD?