A colour poem written by my son

Last week, his school teacher had tasked the children to come up with their own colour poem.

The teacher started off by brainstorming with the kids on what items represent the various colours chosen. For example, purple: Barney, grapes etc; red: fire engine, apples etc. She wrote them down in lists on the white board.

The kids were told to select 2 colours and based on those two colours, select four items that represent them from the lists written on the board.

Then they were to come up with their own poem, writing in their exercise book. After the review by the teacher, they were to rewrite it, this time on the slips of paper like in the photo. The assistant teacher then pasted them on coloured backing and hung them up for display in the class.

My son came up with his own selection of colours and items. He wrote his own poem in the exercise book. Teacher edited the 2nd & 3rd line only, by truncating them. His original 2nd & 3rd line were much longer, continuing with the connective "because". It was explained to him that in poems, you keep it short and it doesn't require connectives.

I was blown away by his 1st and 4th line. It was very much written in the manner of a poem, "poem language" in a way. Teacher was impressed by his 1st line.

The image isn't all that clear, so I'm reproducing it below:

Orange is the sunset when the day is done
Orange is the tigers that are very firce
(correcting it for grammar & spelling: Orange is the tiger that is very fierce)
Orange is the carot that is healthy for your eyes
Orange is the fire that burns very bright.

Late last year, I tried to get him to write a poem. It was about Ferraris (he's crazy about cars). It took a lot of effort and guidance on my part as he had never written one before, and it's so hard for me to get him to write his own sentences at home anyway.

A few weeks after that, we tried to come up with a limerick about his best friend, which also proved tough going.

So, I was really surprised that he came up with that poem & thought it worth a mention in my blog.

He only has 3 books written in poem language and are about vehicles (but of course!) He was assigned a reader book that contained poems about sports a few months ago. That's about the only exposure he has had to poems. So I am really pleased to see his brain working creatively :D