Recently Swift 2nd graders have been playing with personification after reading Shel Silverstein’s “Whatif” poem. The narrator of the poem imagines little whatifs that crawl inside our ears at night, worrying us with questions like “whatif I’m dumb in school?“and “whatif I get beat up?” We wondered what whatifs might look like, then spent some time brainstorming own personification ideas such as: “A pencil who cries,” and “words that own a hotel.”
The following week, some brave students volunteered to come to the board to build poems from the previous week’s ideas, sometimes calling on their classmates for help when they got stuck. Enjoy!
Mr. McCaster
2nd Grade
A reading rabbit
Akshara S.
A reading rabbit that reads fastly
in the park
where so many animals are playing
cats, a kung-fu dolphin, and a dog
that barks furiously.
The reading rabbit is reading about carrots.
It learned how to read fast at rabbit school.
A pencil who does a back flip
Kismat A.
The pencil learned to do a backflip
because its owner was practicing
on a trampoline.
When the pencil back flips, it wears
a yellow scarf.
those back flips make it feel proud.
It says “Howdy!”
A fat cat that reads comics
Samuel K.
A fat cat that reads comics
and eats cheetoes and
glazed donuts all day
the cat was too fat
and got pinched by a pin
and went to outer space!
the fat cat learned its lesson
but it still reads comics in outer space
it had an oxygen mask in its pocket.
Words that go to a race
Yeily G.
The words HAT, FOOD, and BOOKS
were ready to run and get
a trophy at the Olympics.
Ms. Leslie and Angelica and everybody
in the class cheered them on.
They were saying “Yay! Go on!”
it made the words feel happy
and helped them run fast.
Ms. Amato
2nd Grade
When I came into the class, students were excited to share that they were learning about what groups of different animals are called. So, they collaborated on a poem using alliteration.
Galaxy (a group poem using alliteration)
A gaggle of geese in the galaxy saw
Fish swimming in the sea in a Cinderella group called a school
And then a pack of wolves walking in the woods with werewolves
And then a hoard of cute kittens eating cake and kit kats called a litter
And a trial of cheetahs doing the cha-cha slide eating cheetoes, chocolate, cheerios and chicken.
Sophia H.
A book that is so teeny it fits into anything small
like a single piece of silk
or a tiny cubbyhole
the largest thing it can see is bacteria
only ants and baby spiders can read it.
it can see wind
the wind flips its pages
the pages dance in the breeze
every month a new page magically appears.
An alien that drives a car
Kai R.
Its favorite car is a Toyota
for the need of speed
This alien is green and was driving
in the galaxy whine it ran out of gas.
This alien is big and has 20 eyes so it can
look in multiple places.
It learned to drive from its grandfather
His eye poke out and can press buttons.
