Jennifer Shygera's 2007 Colorful Spring Project

Colorful Spring!
A Collaborative Internet Literacy Project Spring 2007

Mrs. Jennifer Shygera Grade 2/3
Herbert School
Saskatchewan, Canada

We wrote a class poem based on the same pattern the author used in the book If You’re Not From the Prairie . . . by David Bouchard

Probably the most waited for sign of spring on the prairies where we live is the song of the meadowlark that we refer to in our yellow verse. Listen to a meadowlark.

Saskatchewan is also known for its blue skies which come alive in spring. In 1998 that became the theme of our license plates.

Our Class Poem

If you haven’t seen Spring
You don’t know yellow,
You can’t know yellow.
The yellow of the meadowlark
singing on the fence,
The brightness of the dandelions
is so intense.
If you haven’t seen Spring,
You don’t know yellow.

If you haven’t seen Spring,
You don’t know blue,
You can’t know blue.
Skies are painted our famous blue.
Reflected in the water of every slough.
If you haven’t seen Spring,
You don’t know blue.

If you haven’t seen Spring,
You don’t know white,
You can’t know white.
The clouds are puffy, beautiful and white.
The blossoms come up – what a lovely sight!
If you haven’t seen Spring,
You don’t know white.

If you haven’t seen Spring,
You don’t know green,
You can’t know green.
In the morning we see the
sparkly green grass
Wave back and forth as the
green frogs pass.
If you haven’t seen Spring,
You can’t know green.

If you haven’t seen Spring,
You don’t know brown,
You can’t know brown.
The snow melts, and everywhere we look
there’s mud.
And the brown tree branches start to bud.
If you haven’t seen Spring,
You don’t know brown.

If you haven’t seen Spring
You don’t know red,
You can’t know red.
The red of the robin,
Lovely, I say.
Beautiful roses
Come up in May
If you haven’t seen Spring,
You don’t know red.

If you haven’t seen Spring,
You don’t know what’s green,
You’ve never seen green.
Green as the shiny leaves appearing
on the trees.
Green like the grass stains we get
on our knees.
So you haven’t seen Spring.
You don’t know what’s green.

If you haven’t seen Spring
You don’t know yellow,
You can’t know yellow.
The sun is bright, a warm,
welcome friend,
Yellow in the morning
and then it ends.
If you haven’t seen Spring,
You don’t know yellow.

Foundational Objective: Write to express thoughts, information, feelings, and experiences in a variety of forms for a variety of purposes and audiences.
write to record personal experiences and observations
write patterned stories, original stories, learning logs, poetry, riddles, friendly letters, messages, notes, instructions, and explanations
create original texts
Foundational Objective: Learn about and practise the skills and strategies of effective writers.
Before Writing:
use pre-writing strategies including brainstorming, talking with others, interviewing, drawing, mapping, and clustering or webbing
plan and make decisions about what to include in written products
recognize that information and ideas can be expressed in different forms for different purposes (e.g., poetry, articles, stories, songs, simple reports)
During Writing:
stay on topic in writing
use a variety of forms to organize and give meaning to familiar experiences, ideas, and information
use common patterns as a framework for writing
experiment with words and simple sentence patterns to enhance communication
apply knowledge of commonalities in word families
After Writing:
choose to revise
add or delete words to make sense
share own writing with others and respond to suggestions
acknowledge writing achievements of others