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(Mrs. Kruel
shared this lesson in
The Colorful Spring Project 2007)
The focus of our poetry unit had three parts: to practice using
descriptive words and phrases in writing, to include personal voice
in writing, and to learn about the many different types of poems.
 After
reading Handsprings: poems and paintings by Douglas Florian,
the class talked about how the author used descriptive writing in
order to create interesting pictures of the spring season in his
readers' minds. We also looked at the format of different alphabet
books, using The Wildlife ABC: A Nature Alphabet by Jan
Thornhill and The Victory Garden Alphabet Book By Jerry
Pallotta and Bob Thomson, to determine the format that the Colorful
Spring Alphabet poem should take.
The class worked in small groups to create a class ABC poem, with
each group assigned to write about spring using several letters of
the alphabet. After reading additional books about spring and much
discussion, cooperative, and collaboration, five groups of fourth
graders worked to compose the parts of the poem using their letters
of the alphabet to describe colorful aspects of spring.
4K students have been reading poems each week from their poetry binders to
practice fluency, so they had a good idea about the many different
types of poetry written by people of all ages. They were given
samples of several types of poetry from
Memaw's Creative Writing Corner,
wrote poems for
Mrs. McGowan's Autumn Across
America project last fall, wrote poems during free
choice writing time, and worked with an wonderful interactive poetry
site called
Instant Poetry Forms
to expand their poetry writing fluency.
We hope you enjoy reading the class poem (2007) and other poetry on
our
current class page!
Colorful Spring Alphabet
A
is for apple blossoms, white flowers that turn into apples
B
is for bunnies, as cuddly and white as can be
C
is for the caterpillar, a green eating machine
D
is for the daffodil with its big yellow petals
E
is for the robin's egg, a colorful blue beginning for baby robins
F
is for colorful flowers blooming in the bright yellow sun
G
is for green grass swaying in the cool spring breeze
H
is for the bee hives that have noisy black and yellow bees in them
I
is for inchworms digging in the warm brown dirt
J
is for green jumping frogs in the cool blue pond
K
is for rainbow kites that soar high in the blue sky
L
is for learning how to ride your brand new red bike
M
is for a moose coming out of its gray cave into the yellow sunlight
N
is for a brown night hawk soaring in the night black sky
O
is for an opossum hanging in a brown tree that's gaining new green
leaves
P
is for pears so juicy, sweet, and green
R
is for queen bees that stay with the golden honey
S
is for sunflowers growing so yellow and bright
T
is for tulips with their colorful personalities
U
is for dreaming under a tree with bark as brown as chocolate
V
is for purple violets that bloom in the spring
W
is for wildflowers blooming in all the colors of the rainbow
X
is for xeriscaping, growing colorful plants with not that much water
Y
is for yams, sweet orange vegetables that grow underground
Z
is for delicious green zucchinis that begin to grow in spring
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