Saturday, March 15, 2014

Experiment with Science and Poetry with Fifth Grade PFA FOR SCIENCE!

Each day this week I will be sharing about the new PFA FOR SCIENCE, brought to you by Sylvia Vardell & Janet Wong, with a host of fine poets contributing! And what a fun week it's been... thanks to all for your comments and warm enthusiasm.

Here's the schedule:
Monday: KINDERGARTEN
Tuesday: FIRST GRADE
Wednesday: SECOND GRADE
Thursday: THIRD GRADE
Friday: FOURTH GRADE
Saturday: FIFTH GRADE

Each day I will be giving away a copy of the Student Edition for that grade level... and at the end of the week, I will choose one winner from all the commenters via blog/Facebook/Twitter for the K-5 TEACHER edition!

So, FIFTH GRADE. Again, the line drawings that accompany the poems in the Student Edition are wonderful and engaging! There's also a Glossary and Index, both of which I find particularly helpful. And I especially appreciate the inclusion of English and Spanish translations of some of the poems. Nice!

The poem I'd like to share today reminds me of why I love poetry. It magnifies something small and often taken for granted: 

THINK OF AN ATOM
by Buffy Silverman

Think of an atom
so tiny, so small--
a speck of the world
             a speck of us all,
a speck of the ocean
a speck of a fly
a speck of a mountain,
             a book or the sky.

Imagine that speck
growing wide, growing tall
              an atom as large as
your school or the mall.

The atom looks empty--
           almost nothing at all,
but there in the center
a tiny tight ball
of neutrons and protons
with mass and with weight.
How many for each?
           for oxygen: eight!)

Its charges are balanced: 
a proton adds one,
           -(each electron's a minus)
the neutrons add none.

Outside of the nucleus--
             that tight little ball--
the electrons are swirling
they're smaller than small
like pieces of dust
whizzing through space
a cloud of electrons
              in a zip-zapping race.

An atom is tiny--
astoundingly small--
Trillions like here
on this dot that I scrawl.

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Yay for atoms! This poem makes something we can't even see wondrous and fun. To which I say: yay for poetry! :)

In the TEACHER'S EDITION for this poem (p.237), Sylvia Vardell has created TAKE FIVE! activities that include: 

Listening for science words
inviting students to join in on the final stanza
challenging students to illustrate a part of the poem using sketch or collage
discussion about matter and properties and a look at a model of an atom
a reference to other poems about matter

Good stuff! 

GIVEAWAY: Comment here or on Twitter @irene_latham or on my Facebook page! Winners announced daily.


5 comments:

  1. I am happy to finish up the week Irene. This again is another good example of using concepts in poetry, isn't it? Real facts, presented happily! Thanks for a nice week of presentations!

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    1. Linda, you are the winner of the 5th grade student edition! Sending it your way. xo

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  2. Your samples from the book make me wish we could teach every subject through poetry. Maybe we should. I teach gifted students. Poetry speaks to them and they are amazing poets. I need to get my hands on this anthology. Thanks for peek inside.

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  3. I wish I had Buffy's talent of explaining non-fiction in such a fun, yet factual way. I especially love the image of " a cloud of electrons/in a zip-zapping race." Thanks again, Irene, for offering us a peek at all of these student editions!

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  4. Hi Irene--Thanks for featuring my poem! Glad you enjoyed it (and after writing it I am indeed more in wonder of atoms and also the physicists who explain what is seemingly unexplainable.)

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Your thoughts?