Part of Badgerdog’s summer camp experience includes two getaways intended to provide a change of pace from the classroom environment and to offer other life forms and art forms as inspiration for students’ writing. This summer, for the first time, our elementary-aged writers took a trip to the Urban Roots farm, where they enjoyed an up-close look at the summer harvest, a little work in the fields, and plenty of grasshopper sightings. Though it was a hot, hot summer day in Texas, the students turned their experiences on the farm into beautiful poetry and prose, and we’re happy to share it with you this week. Enjoy!
Haiku
Round and very sweet.
It is red and fruity. Yum!
It is ripe today.
Angela, fifth grade
A Spider’s Point of View
I am a spider, and right now I am so angry at those human monsters. I spent two days finishing my web, and then those monsters came with a broom and bang, my web broke. My friends and I have tried to avoid those human monsters. We tried to tell the humans our webs are delicate, but they won’t listen. Right now, my family is sitting dead at the bottom of a dumpster.
It is really boring weaving a web. It is like weaving a basket. My mom taught me to weave a web. My first web was really small. But the web the monsters broke was as a big as this whole page. Most of my friends died because of the monsters. It is the worst life for a spider.
Francisca, fourth grade
A Day in the Life of a Tree
Sitting, watching, waiting. I have a sad, lonely life as an evergreen tree. My spikes are mean, and they will never go away or fall of because I am an evergreen tree. Other trees lose their mean leaves, and the mean ones turn different colors. But the innocent leaves are picked off the branches, for they lived on a regular tree.
I sit. I watch. I wait.
Sage, fifth grade
Green
The leaves
are as green as
a grasshopper. I feel
as fresh as the time
I opened my door
when the weather
was great!
The flowers
are like a garden
in a secret place
I have never seen.
Aditi, fourth grade
Field Trip
Hot
Sweaty
Summer
Day
Sweaty
Itchy
Fun
Day
Eric, third grade
A Two-Winged Dragonfly
Perching on a branch
Looking for a place to land
Fluttering away
Joshua, third grade
Beautiful Fields
I feel the smooth grass
I taste the sweet tomatoes
I see the tomatoes growing before me
I hear the crunch, crack, click of a bug
I taste the sweet tomatoes
I see the flutter of excitement
I hear the crunch, crack, click of a bug.
I see the flies flying away.
Joshua, third grade
The Flying Bug
Black and clear
Flying swiftly
Buzzing in your ear
Bumpy
Flying swiftly
Rough
Bumpy
And skinny.
Lauren, fourth grade
Weed Tree
A weed
as big as a tree.
A colossal, huge
weed. It’s
agony. It’s
impossible
to pull. Sweat
pouring down
my head.
I never got
it out.
Will it
ever
come out?
Alex, fifth grade
A Tree
In the middle
of nowhere
stands a lifeless,
twisted, deformed
tree. All the leaves
have fallen and
gone. What is
left is only
the hollow trunk
and the shady
branches, giving
the tree
a spooky image.
Alexander, sixth grade
Drying Onions
Drying out the onions
under the hay,
as dry as a hot desert.
The sun shines
as bright as a flashlight.
In the greenhouse,
it is hot, sweaty, and bright.
The sun bleeds through
like a marker on a paper.
Shreyas, fifth grade
unbound 