Weekly Unplugged Project - Haiku
This has been a hectic week for us, so we were never really able to sit down and do this one all together, but rather in bits and pieces throughout the week.
My 5 year-old son didn’t feel like doing it (I was going to have him illustrate one of my haikus), so it was an all girl event at our house!
My 7 year-old daughter really loved the whole exercise and of course chose to write about her new fish that she acquired by trading her Halloween candy. She immediately hung her haiku and drawing up in her room by her fish (along with some very funny “Fish Rules”).
The way I decided to introduce it to her was the following:
1) She picked a subject (her fish)
2) She wrote down a list of words that described her fish
3) She wrote the number of syllables in each word next to that word
4) She combined them and added a few words, to create the appropriate number of syllables for each line (I had to help a bit with this part - finding and extra word here and there to help fill things out, but basically this is her creation).
Actually, it was hard to get her away from thinking in terms of sentences, which is what she is used to when she writes at school. Very interesting!
Here are the results. My haikus are not high quality, but considering I have not written one since elementary school, I guess they’ll do. I had so much fun with this since it has a very logical, almost puzzle-solving aspect to it, unlike a lot of poetry. I might even inflict more haikus upon the blogosphere! (Sorry!)
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Our Gallery:
Author: Oldest daughter, age 7
Illustrator: Oldest daughter, age 7
My Fish
He is a Betta
With sparkly shiny scales
In a tall glass vase
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Author: Me, age more than 7
Illustrator: Oldest daughter, age 7
Squirrels
Chattering gray clowns
Who do tricks for a peanut
Make me laugh out loud
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Author: Me
Illustrator: Youngest daughter, age 22 months
Green
Color of envy
Cool spring rains bring emeralds
That taste like a lime
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Author: Me
Photographer: Me
Pipsqueak
Ebony silk coat
Black cat sits on my paper
Fur tickles my nose
(yes, black cat Pipsqueak helped me write the haikus!)
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This was a fairly detailed, specific project. I hope it was fun, but for next week I have decided to go in entirely the opposite, very minimalist, direction. Here is next Monday’s Unplugged Project:
Red
I can’t wait to see what we all do with it!
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Posted: November 4th, 2007 under Activity Ideas, Unplugged Project, educational/homeschool.
Tags: educational/homeschool, haiku, haiku for kids, homeschool, kids poetry, Unplugged Project
Comments
Comment from Andrée
Time: November 4, 2007, 8:46 pm
I love them all. Great work they did, and great photos! Red, huh? Your haiku suggestion I think is good: it’ll give me more practice. Now for the red . . .
Comment from Tamara
Time: November 4, 2007, 8:52 pm
Thanks so much for the great ideas. I think it is great how you are doing a variety of ideas as well as a variety of ways of presenting it. This next week might be tough for me because I may have to think a bit. We did love the haiku though!
Comment from Heather
Time: November 4, 2007, 11:33 pm
Oh great job on the Haiku’s. I have to admit that we were all a little nervous about the project, but my son is willing to try another one in the future. That is good so thanks. As for the Red my mind is already working over time. Our youngest’s favorite color is red, everything has to be red for him. So this will be a lot of fun.
Comment from amanda
Time: November 5, 2007, 7:44 am
I love your illustrated haikus! What a fun project. I’m glad you shared your process for helping your seven year old write one. That was interesting.
We never did get around to actually doing the project last week. We will remember to do something RED this week, though. hmmmm . . .
Comment from Daphne
Time: November 5, 2007, 9:32 am
I liked this weeks project! It was a bit of a challenge and a little hard on my brain - but well worth the adventure :)
Comment from homeschooljourney
Time: November 5, 2007, 11:35 am
OOOhh, very nice indeed. It’s like painting with words isn’t it?
We did poetry over here too, but not Haiku. Both girls did poetry for their Remembrance Day projects. Is it okay to display that? Or do you prefer to keep it to Haiku?
Comment from Mom Unplugged
Time: November 5, 2007, 12:37 pm
Hi Cheryl (homeschooljourney),
No that would be great if you’d join us. It doesn’t matter that it’s not haiku! The more the merrier!
Comment from Jenny
Time: November 5, 2007, 12:53 pm
I caught CJ’s cold (as usual), so we didn’t get much done over the weekend other than the bare essentials. I found a cute counting haiku book that I’ll write about in the next couple days- Benadryl isn’t conducive to writing about books, or much of anything really- other than sleeping. I love what you did with both of your daughters- and you’re pretty good at haiku, I’d say!
Comment from missbecky75
Time: November 5, 2007, 4:31 pm
Unfortunately we never got to this project. I had it all mapped out in my head how to introduce it (turns out it was just as you did), but we just never sat down to do it. Maybe I’ll do it this week as well as the Red Project. We’ll see.
I am really enjoying your weekly projects. Thanks again!
Comment from Cloudscome
Time: November 8, 2007, 8:27 am
I love this project! Your haiku are wonderful and the photos are priceless! I’ve posted a list of haiku books for kids from our library.
Pingback from Unplug Your Kids » Non-Toxic Haiku Books for Children
Time: January 27, 2008, 10:19 am
[...] you haven’t been following our weekly Unplugged Projects, last Monday’s project involved haiku. I wanted to suggest some children’s haiku books but couldn’t find any [...]
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