Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Writing the Rainbow Poem #5 - Tumbleweed


Welcome to my National Poetry Month project for 2017!  Students - Each day of April 2017, I will close my eyes, and I will reach into my box of 64 Crayola crayons.

Aerial View of Crayola Box
Photo by Georgia LV

Each day I will choose a crayon (without looking), pulling this crayon out of the box. This daily selected crayon will in some way inspire the poem for the next day.  Each day of this month, I will choose a new crayon, thinking and writing about one color every day for a total of 30 poems inspired by colors.

I welcome any classrooms of poets who wish to share class poems (class poems only please) related to each day's color (the one I choose or your own).  Please post your class poem or photograph of any class crayon poem goodness to our fast-growing Writing the Rainbow Padlet HERE.  (If you have never posted on a Padlet, it is very easy.  Just double click on the red background, and a box will appear.  Write in this box, and upload any poemcrayon sharings you wish.)

Here is a list of this month's Writing the Rainbow Poems so far:

(Comment on this 3/30 post for book drawing through 4/11)

And now...today's crayon.  Tumbleweed!

I Pretend
by Amy LV




Students - I did a little bit of tumbleweed reading to write today's poem.  I've never seen a tumbleweed in real life, and now I want to see one (and hear one) very much. Tumbleweeds are parts of certain plants that break off and tumble away in the wind, bringing their seeds and/or spores with them.

You can see some pictures about tumbleweeds and learn more about them at Wikipedia HERE or at DesertUSA HERE.  I love that some people call tumbleweeds "wind witches."  And I guess that some people even decorate with tumbleweeds.  You can buy them here at Dried Decor.  Isn't that funny?  (I kind of want to buy one and blow it around my living room.)

You can hear a simulated tumbleweed sound...or perhaps it is a real tumbleweed sound...below, recorded by McCosbury Studios.



You may have noticed that this month's poems are all centered around one child's life and around the apartment building in which this child lives.  Sounds play an important part in our days, and so thinking about the color tumbleweed made me think about the sound a true tumbleweed would make.  One never knows the path one's writing mind will take when tickled by color!

If you write a poem today, you might choose to think about sound too.  Is your color associated with a sound?  Might you make this sound the central idea for your poem?

Colors can take us anywhere.  And if you'd like to join in with us on our WRITING THE RAINBOW PADLET, please do!  It is growing like crazy, with calendars and videos and poems and book suggestions.  Please join us!  We're only 1/6 of the way through our month-long poetry rainbow!

Don't miss the links to all kinds of Poetry Month goodness up there in my upper left sidebar.  Happy fifth day of National Poetry Month. 

Please share a comment below if you wish.

5 comments:

  1. Here's my lesson plan for today linked to your project: https://reflectionsontheteche.wordpress.com/2017/04/05/npm-5-goldenrod/

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  2. A crayon color of tumbleweed? I think I might need to purchase a new box of crayons! I love the turn in your poem, Amy, from busy & noisy to imagining that quiet hush of tumbleweeds. We found a purple one long ago, & I had it on a shelf. Finally, it faded, but it was so pretty!

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  3. Amy, your poems are amazing. You are so talented!

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  4. So cool. I love the research part of writing a poem. :-D

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  5. First of all, Tumbleweed is a COLOR?

    Second of all, it cracks me up that you had to do research on tumbleweeds. I grew up with tumbleweed reality: fencerows obscured by tumbleweeds, pulling tumbleweeds out of the iris after a windstorm, tumbleweeds rolling down the streets of town, the song "Tumblin' Tumbleweeds."

    Thirdly, LOVE that your city character imagines a place so very different than her own! I like this kid!

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