Poetry Break: The Spring Wind

Introduction
I will place four different fans around the room adjusting them to varying speeds to simulate the wind in the poem. I will attach streamers to the front of the fans. I will ask the students what a fan makes.

The Spring Wind
By Charlotte Zolotow

The summer wind
is soft and sweet
the winter wind is strong
the autumn wind is mischievous
and sweeps the leaves along.

The wind I love the best
comes gently after rain
smelling of spring and growing things
brushing the world with feathery wings
while everything glistens, and everything sings
in the spring wind
after the rain.


From Read-Aloud Rhymes For The Very Young, selected by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Marc Brown. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986.

Extension
I will ask the students to tell about different things that happen depending on the speed the wind is blowing. What activities depend on wind? As a class we will make a list poem of windy activities. Living in west Texas during the spring usually assures us of enough wind to fly a kite. When we finish our poem we will go outside and fly a kite.