Poetry: A lesson with my daughter

Before my family went to the beach we purchased writer's notebooks for the trip. My daughter that is 4 enjoys drawing pictures in her notebook and writing her pre-literacy words. My daughter that is six is ready for the first grade. She is great mathematically, and is a phenomenal writer. We were getting ready for the trip and she and I had a great conversation about poetry. She asked, "Momma, how do you write poetry?" I then explained that poetry is not like writing a story, or like writing sentences, but more like writing phrases about something. We decided, that while we were on the island we would sit down and write a Haiku about a seashell. (My daughter blew me away with how quickly she picked up the concept of Haiku). Well, we did not write a poem about a seashell we wrote a poem about a shark tooth we found on the beach!

I had written a Haiku earlier in the week about these cool little clam-like things that dig themselves in the sand after each sweep of the tide (not sure what their called?). They fascinate me and so I shared this Haiku with her so that she could see the rhythm of the poem.

We sat on our porch looking at the tooth, we described its many characteristics (like a scientist) and then we wrote our poem together. It was a very proud moment for me.

I also mentioned that I would like to try a tritinia poem while on the island. Cloudscome tried this and I was intrigued by the challenge. My daughter understood what the rules for this poem was when I read it to her... "Cool Mama, you just repeated those words, I get it now!"

Here is a picture and our poetry at the beach:

Shark Tooth

Dark, pointy, black tooth;
Laying hidden in the tide's surf,
Were you here?

Mentor Haiku used to help my daughter write the shark tooth poem:

I am a shovel;

Digging in the salty sand

Waiting here

My attempt at the tritinia:

The World at Sea

Catching the air,

blowing in the breeze,

drying in the sun;

Protection from the sun, providing warmth from the air,

smell the salty sea breeze;

Hot and humid longing for a breeze,

ever pressing heat from the sun,

Salty, moisture carried in the air;

Feeling the cool air, coming in from the sea breeze,

cooling off from the warm summer sun;