Third Grade Odes from Northfield E.S.
Tomorrow is the poetry celebration at Northfield Elementary School. The student poets are welcoming family and friends for a reading and poetry tour of the five third grade classrooms.
I’ve been doing an elementary school workshop on odes for many years. This time around, I swapped out my usual model poem and got these poets writing odes to a favorite place. The mentor for this workshop is “Harlem Is the Capital of My World,” from Tony Medina’s wonderful picture book/verse biography of Langston Hughes, LOVE TO LANGSTON. You can find the poem and links related to this lesson at my last post.
The first two poems I’m sharing today use the mentor text as a scaffold, keeping some of the rhythm and structure, but focusing on a topic of the poets’ choosing.
Poet: Amelia
My Room
My room is the center of my heart.
When I get home I hear
the hummingbirds outside my window
flying as fast as a cheetah runs.
And I touch my stuffed animals
then I remember how dreadful
I would be without them,
and I smell their lavender scent.
And smells like the forest,
right outside my house.
When I lay on my bed, I see my desk.
Without it, I would not get my homework done
and I would get suspended from school
and I would live alone on the street.
And when I get home from school,
I get out my hidden gummi bears.
Without them, I would starve to death.
The King of Beds.
The Duke of Stuffytown.
The Empress of Color.
My room is the center of my heart.
***
Poet: Joyce
My Favorite Place to Visit Is Italy
Wonderful scents wafting through the air.
Pizza and pasta smells delicious!
Busy city streets, cars’ horns honking.
Refreshing gelato on a warm sunny day,
chocolate, mint, and pistachio.
Gelato bursting with flavors.
Amazing ancient places, the Coliseum
and the statues of Michelangelo.
I feel the smooth marble
of the Bridge of Sighs. So shiny and nice.
***
In the next two poems, you’ll see some of the techniques we practiced with these odes: imagery of the five senses, using similes to create the feeling of celebration and praise typical of this poetic form, and some great hyperbole!
Poet: Advaith
Ode to a Tree
Oh, Tree, you give me shade,
you give me shelter, food,
a place to live.
You are a hero to fellow animals
and soon to become a book of fame
to us fellow humans.
Oh, Tree, you can truly
be anything, but in an origami form.
Whoosh! One of your leaves
flies away and becomes the first meal
of a newborn caterpillar.
***
Poet: Ryan
Ode to the Kitchen
The kitchen is my mouth’s heaven.
I taste an apple as sour and sweet
as a jumbo lollipop.
I hear chewing as loud as a lion’s roar.
I see a pan as big as an elephant.
I smell a lot of yummy things.
My kitchen smells
like a cotton candy dimension.
When I touch the glorious food in my kitchen,
my starving stomach feels relieved
that I’m about to take a bite
of my food (from the kitchen).
Posts in the “Poems from the Northfield Third Grade” 2018 series:
Poetry Friday List Poem Lesson
A Garden of Words: 3rd Grade List Poems
The Pool Is the Capital of My Summer: Odes to Place
Third Grade Odes from Northfield E.S.
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