Private Eye Poetry

The children in Grades 3 – 6 have been writing poetry with Miss Bonnie, our visiting volunteer teacher from Canada. Click to read some of their poems and to learn more about the Private Eye program that she uses to help inspire the children to look closely at everyday objects around them and ask the question – “What is that like?”

 

The Private Eye is a program about the drama and wonder of looking closely at the world, thinking by analogy, changing scale and theorizing. It’s based on a simple set of tools that produce “gifted” results. Hands-on and investigative, The Private Eye uses everyday objects, a jeweler’s loupe, and simple questions to develop higher order thinking skills, creativity and scientific literacy.

The jeweler’s loupe is a magical magnification tool, quite different from a hand lens in its use and effect. It helps strip a thing of its stereotyped image so that real discovery, real thinking can begin.

 

The second “magnification tool” is a pair of questions; as you loupe-look at your own fingerprint, or a piece of popcorn or a flower or a spider you’ll ask these questions to evoke thinking by analogy:

 

“What else does it remind me of?”

“What else does it look like?”

 

These analogies, written (in the compressed form of metaphors and similes), become the bones-for-poems, and become the foundation for hypothesizing, theorizing, for answering the question: “Why is it like that?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Flower

By T.F. Grade 4

The green snake slithering through the pink fire of madness,
The matches lit with the soft touch of a magenta colour,
A green Venus fly trap with spikes at its sides,
An emerald as green as a four leaf clover in a meadow full of beautiful flowers,
A distinctive smell of rosy apples.

 

 

My Flower

By R.H. Grade 4

The stem of my wonderful violet flower is a masquerade of beautiful colours,
Stars with a milk chocolate colour with designs on them,
The petals, oh the wonderful petals of my flower are soft like silk,
The white middle of my flower is like coconut shreds,
The emerald green veins of my flower’s leaves smell like mint, how lovely!
I love you, oh sweet flower, I love you.

 

 

My Fabulous Flower

J.M. Grade 6

Oh breath-taking flower,
Your veins like a knitted quilt, warming me on a cold winter’s night.
Your buds like a newborn baby, taking its very first breath into a new world,
You’re a dazzling diamond glistening in the bright, beautiful sun,
Your petals, like satisfying shells lying at the bottom of a brilliant bay,
Oh breath-taking flower, this is what I see in you.

 

 

 

My Orange

J.J. Grade 4

A glistening fire of madness,
Its veins like wiggly strings,
Smells lovely like a damp forest of heaven
With beautiful seeds of camouflage,
Juice as sweet as candy,
Some magenta mixed with orange, together a lovely mix,
A smell which is both calm and passionate,
A spectacular whitish gleam.

 

 

My Orange

By A.H. Grade 6

Looks like a sparkling sun with no rays,
As sweet as cotton candy,
Smells that make me go hungry,
As juicy as a tasty tomato,
Skin as soft as velvet,
Pulp like trees blowing with the wind,
As stringy as cooked spaghetti,
Like a person always smiling at me.

 

 

My Sweet Little Sun

M.A. Grade 6

Oh! My little sweet orange, your pulp reminds me of the scales of a fish,
Little grains of sand flying in front of the sun,
Oh! My little orange, tell me what you think..
You’re a butterfly’s wing, a desert at midday, a little goldfish on a lake illuminated by the sun,
My little orange has more than twenty children skipping with an orange rope,
You’re like the first smile of a newborn baby,
Like the petal of a sunflower,
Oh! My little orange, tell me, what is your secret?

 

Illustration by M.A

 

 

My Lime, My Orange

E.D. Grade 5

My lime is a wonderful beach with green water,
My orange is a muddy swamp with orange mud,
My lime is a mask of a green man’s face,
My orange is an evil eye,
My lime is the smell of the sweetest candy in the world,
My orange is a coral reef of the Turks and Caicos,
My lime is the disgusting Shrek,
My orange is the spectacular sunset,
My orange and my lime are a sailing boat.

 

 

 

 

 

Click on the image below to visit the Private Eye website