Grade 5 Shell Poetry

All the children in Grades 3 – 7 have enjoyed writing poetry with Miss Bonnie this week, using the ‘Private Eye Program’.

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 (magnifier), and simple questions to develop higher order thinking skills, creativity and scientific literacy: “What is that like?”  “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.

Each of the children in Grade 5 wrote a poem after looking closely, through a loupe, at a scallop shell.  Here are a couple of them.  Can you guess which shell they were looking at?  Can you see how the shells inspired their poems?

War Shell

Barb wire getting boiled in molten lava

Bullet wounds in fallen soldiers

Blood on the white silver sand

Tears of loved ones on the lonely bed

Terrible cries of agony on the battlefield

True and noble soldiers put to the test.

My Shell

An early morning sun

Patterns like waves on the beach

A racing cheetah in the forest

Lines that are parallel,

A sandy beach from a distance,

Zig zag lightning strikes.