2nd Grade Poems

Today, Julia brought home a box full of classwork from throughout the school year.  Included in the work papers was a set of poems, and I'll share some of my favorites here.

 Fly Fly by Julia

"Fly fly, soaring high. 
While you see me passing by.
Dancing on the sun,
which is so fun.
Dancing on the moon
in the afternoon.
Fly fly, soaring high.
You will see me zooming by.
This way that way, here too!
I will zoom with you!
Woo!"

It's the final "woo" that does it for me, man.  Hits you like an exclamation-point punch of poignancy.

House

"I have a great house up high on a hill
I do a cartwheel on the window sill.
A house has a chimney, a house has a door
and a house has a roof.
We look through the window, we peer out the door.
To surprise we have to crawl on the floor.
And in our house there is a mouse.
And there is a hole in our house with a lot of mice.
Our house is big and your house is small,
but really, the size does not matter at all."

This one is very Dr. Seussian, though it's missing his perfect balance of rhyming meter. '

And for the record, it's great that your fictional, poetical house is big, but I think I might opt for the small house instead, if the small house does NOT have a mouse nor a hole with a lot of mice.  And, really, to be honest, I'm also fine without the death trap that is cartwheels on the windowsill of a house that is high on a hill.

Prized Popsical

"Your cold, your sweet, your delisous,
this is what you are.  Your a popsical.
Red, orange, any color will do. 
As I spend my days licking and eating you.
I find myself in a tangle of words that I can't describe,
but of course all the words are about you, my delisous popsical.
I look at you and then I see I have a great destiny!"

WOW.  This is some SERIOUS poetry.  A tangle of words?  A great destiny??  (I do hope that part of her destiny is learning the difference between "your" and "you're".  Maybe in 3rd grade.)  Who would ever have thought that the experience of eating a popsical could be so profound?!?

Pencil

"Point is always sharp, you always make me smart.
Your yellow and shiny, and you've got a nice eraser.
You make me smile,
all the while
I wright on my great math sheet."

Yeah, my pencils always make me smile, too.

 

What I Like About My Ice Cream by Julia

"I can feel you, I can see you, I can taste you.

I love you, ice cream.

Your great to lick, 

You never make me feel sick!

I cream, I love you!

I love you alot!

I can't live without you, 

I have not forgot.

Please do not leave me.  

Please, do not...

Now you have left me and I miss you alot."

I like the Shel Silverstein vibe to this poem, with the sardonic ending.  

I guess the ice cream eating is not as epic an experience as the popsical one.  The empty ice cream cone leaves her feeling sad, while the popsical stick gives her visions of her great destiny.  

I have a tangle of words in my head right now as I contemplate all of this insightful poetry!

The Rowe Girls Variety Show

You never quite know what you're going to get when your kid says this:

JULIA: Mommy!  We prepared a SHOW for you, so can you come downstairs and VIDEO it?

Gallopy Galloping Girls

Since Madeleine wants to do EVERYTHING that her big sister does, it is no surprise that she has now taken to doing Gallop Time through the living room, down the hallway, and back.  However, today was the first occasion on which Madeleine decided to gallop WITHOUT Julia having started it first.  In this instance, I was giving Julia a piano lesson, and we had this distracting thumpiness going on in the background:




Julia had trouble handling the fact that Madeleine was galloping, but not because it was breaking her concentration at the piano.

JULIA: Mommy!  I don't want Madeleine galloping!  *I'm* the one who MADE UP galloping, and I don't want Madeleine doing it ALONE!


Now, while Madeleine is clearly imitating her sister in actions, she is not necessarily doing so in thoughts.  It turns out that Madeleine, unlike her sister, does NOT think about the imaginary Mintz family while she gallops.

JULIA: Madeleine??  What do you think about when you gallop?
MADELEINE: (delightedly) Nothing!!
JULIA: (disappointed) Oh.

Cheer up, Jules.  YOU'RE the one who made up the Mintz, so at least you don't have to worry about Madeleine thinking about them ALONE.

More Art

Madeleine's artwork isn't creepy at all.

Swim Meet

Madeleine and Julia got to swim in a casual, inter-team meet today; Madeleine's first meet ever!  While she may not have been the fastest swimmer in the pool (and was, in fact, the slowest), it was pretty exciting to watch her give it a shot.  The youngest swimmer by at least two years, she got to try out the race atmosphere without the formal rules and disqualification for imperfect strokes that accompany the in-season meets. 

She started the meet off with a 25 yard freestyle:




Madeleine's second and final event was the backstroke:




Julia swam three events, only one of which I got on video, since it was her first 50 yard event, complete with flip turn:




And lest you think the girls are getting TOO grown-up with their abilities to swim independently, I can assure you that they can turn back into two-year-olds in the blink of an eye.

Madeleine, upon being asked by the head coach how she liked her first meet, felt that the appropriate response was to pat the coach on the cheek and then take playful bites out of her hand.

Julia discovered that she had left her clothes, her sneakers, her goggles, her swim cap, her shampoo and her conditioner in a locker at her last practice, which was on THURSDAY.  It was also, not coincidentally, the first time I didn't help her out in the locker room, since I had to leave early and go to Madeleine's end-of-year preschool picnic.  Julia was in charge of her own locker room responsibilities and met Ethan in the lobby afterwards.  Clearly, she didn't even stop to realize any of that stuff had been missing over the past three days until she stumbled upon them in a random locker today.

So, despite their growth on the swimming front, we obviously still have some work to do...

More Classwork

Also in Madeleine's take-home preschool classwork.  What on earth is a parent supposed to make of this?!?:

"MADELEINE'S IS GOING INTO A BLACK SMOKER."


Hmm.

Madeleine's Journal

Madeleine is no longer a preschooler!  She celebrated her last day of school on Wednesday, and got to bring home lots of class and art work to share with all of us.  Among such classwork was a weekly journal, in which she drew pictures and then dictated, and later "kindergarten-spelled," a description of what she had drawn.  Here are some highlights:

Ah.  Just what one would expect in a preschooler's journal.  A picture of an alien spider, a chair, and a door that hits people with the doorknobs.  Madeleine's artwork (and descriptions) are never, ever slightly sociopathic at all.

"This is the smiley page with green scribbles."

I am going to be seeing that smile in my nightmares.

"I am jumping on the moon."

It's interesting that she is not wearing a space suit as she does so.  Maybe this confirms my whole idea that Madeleine comes from a different planet.  In this case, she apparently inhabits the moon with no need to breathe oxygen or protect her body from the elements.  And she has a blue face.  And what is either blue hair or four long blue fangs coming from her mouth.

Oh, well here's a normal one: "It's the Zombie's birthday.  Her favorite color is red and that's why her balloon is red."

The reason why her favorite color is red is because that's the color of blood.  

I am sensing a theme here.  "This is an alien bouncing on the moon."

"This is Twilight Sparkle writing.  It says something she learned about friendship today."

This is just pure laziness.  What are you going to draw in your journal today?  A bunch of wavy lines. 

Well, now. Finally a post that is not about aliens or moons or scribbles.  "I am at Rosemary Pool for free swim.  It is only open in the summer."

Ah, post "Pirates of the Caribbean viewing."  I like the spelling attempts here.  'Tes Cabden Jac Sbaro" translates to "This is Captain Jack Sparrow."  I was totally lost on "Tes the gzegzg," however.  Luckily, Madeleine was able to inform me that it spells "this is the zig-zag."

And clearly these were drawn after Madeleine got deep into the "Ting and Ling" books.  And in her version, Ting and Ling are not little twin girls, but are instead hulking giants.

I've gotta say, this is not bad kindergarten spelling!  I can definitely read that it says "Rosemary Pool is closing."  I'm not sure what the picture with the screaming floating head has to do with the subject matter, however.

And finally, we have: "The Culr Mustr," or "the color monster" in standard English.  Because, let's face it, we had our fair share of aliens and zombies, but monsters were sort of under-represened in this journal, so why not close out with one, right?


I can't WAIT to see the kind of work Madeleine does in kindergarten!