Happy National Poetry Month! This month I am tagging along with poet/author Amy Ludwig VanDerwater during what has become her annual NPM Project. You can click here to learn more about this straight from Amy! This year she is writing and sharing a new poem every day, each highlighting a different poetic technique, but keeping the same subject. Her challenge, 1 Subject 30 Ways, is also a bit of an informal book study, as she’s using her fall 2017 release Poems Are Teachers (Heinemann) as her guide. Join us!
Today’s writing technique chosen by Amy is be inspired by a memory. My subject is, and will be all month-long, vernal pools. A memory that returns to me at this time of year is saying goodbye to the wood frogs we head-start in my Kindergarten classroom. Under the watchful eye of a conservation biologist, we head-start these tiny creatures from our campus vernal pool. We first meet them in March or April when they are an egg mass, a raft floating on the surface of the water. Over the next two months or so, we marvel at their metamorphosis, knowing that they must be returned to their home soon. While we are sad, it is comforting to know that the head-starting program gives these gentle creatures, no bigger than a thumbprint, a better chance of survival. Our classroom tanks are a safer environment for them in many respects than their natural habitat. They have much to teach us.
Still so small, fragile
The time has come for you to go
Released back into your native habitat
The vernal pool
The place of your birth
Room to grow
An abundance of food
Creatures to learn from, play with
Your brief time with us
Has given you a better chance
To survive and thrive
Has taught us
Conservation
Wetland ecology
Landscape history
With gratitude
Tiny teacher
I also hope you will stop by Live Your Poem daily to follow along the journey of the 2018 KidLitosphere Progressive Poem, a fun annual collaborative project lovingly begun in 2012 by poet/author Irene Latham. The poem will magically, and quite literally this year, be growing right before our eyes daily during the month of April. This year we are following along the journey of Jasmine and her companions Moon and Owl. Jasmine, from a long line of poet’s jasmine, began has begun making her way in the world, and has at long last found her poetic voice! The process has been fascinating to follow and I was excited to dive in for the first time with line eighteen. I hope you will follow Jasmine’s journey for the remainder of our Progressive Poem month by clicking on the blogs in the list below. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
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Many thanks to the crew at Two Writing Teachers, and the extended SOL community, for giving us the time, space, and encouragement to live the writerly life here each Tuesday. Won’t you join us? This post is also part of my personal National Poetry Month celebration. I hope you’ll join me in sharing your favorite poetic gems throughout the month of April whether they are written by you, your students, or another poet.
Wondering and Wandering 
Such an amazing experience for your kinders, Christie! I am envious of your access to this vernal pool. Question…did you write this poem yourself, with your children interactively, or in a shared poetry writing experience? I’m holding my own in teaching poetry to my littles this month, and I am excited to say it is going so well! They really seem to be connecting to poetry, and each day are eager to write more.
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Hi Dani! This one I did entirely on my own. I have involved my K poets on others, though. It’s really been a learning experience for me, working my way through Amy’s book. I am excited to have my students write even more this spring. I’m thrilled you are having great success with yours!
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Such a sweet memory that evokes a memory about frogs for me. We were visiting my sister, who at the time lived by a creek. My boys sneaked out early one morning and collected frogs they released into the kitchen and dining room. Must have been around twenty frogs hopping around, croaking when we awoke.
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I love your poem!! I almost felt like I could feel the tiny frog in my hand. Thank you for introducing/reminding me to check out the PoemFarm challenge with Poems are Teachers.
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Thank you! When we return them to the VP they are no bigger than an adult fingerprint. So sweet!
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I bet the kinders cry a bit when they have to give their tiny pets back to the world. How wonderful for them, though, that they can think about the frogs right there in the pond on campus and can go and visit them.
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And return they do throughout the summer! It’s hard to let go. 🙂
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What a wonderful learning experience you’re providing your students with your head-starting program! I like the bookending of your poem — first line / last line. It gave me pause, and then I saw your poem as a “letter.”
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I wasn’t quite sure how to end it, Alice. In thinking about how much we learn from the head-starting experience, I realized the frogs become teachers. So decided to flip from “tiny frog” to “tiny teacher.”
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I’ve enjoyed your poems this month and the way you’ve included your kindergartners. 🙂
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Thank you. It’s been fun having them tag along, too.
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