Poetry Club at Lang Middle School

Last week I helped start an after school poetry club at Lang Middle School.  Each week, the poetry we work on will also be documented on this canvas.  Our first project was to write color poems.  As the students read their poems, they also added their colors to the painting.  Over the next several weeks, we will add many more layers to the picture.

Here are some lines from the students' poems, combined to make one poem:

Green tastes like cucumber. 
Green sounds like the wind blowing on the grass.
Green lives in the leaves.

Blue sounds like thunder.
Blue smells like seawater.
It feels like a soft pillow.  It thinks beautiful, peaceful thoughts.
Blue lives in Italy.  Blue can live in the sky.

Red tastes like cherry.  It sounds like blood.
It smells like strawberries.  If Red was a person it would be fun.
Red feels like cherries all around.

Black is charcoal. Taste of burned food.
If it were a person, what would it do?  Pass by you, fast.
What does it feel like?  Black metal.

(thank you to Big Thought for sending me to do this project!)

Painting the Music II

This painting was created by 65 preschoolers between ages 2 and 5, while we listened to Bach.  I turned the canvas one way as we listened to the pipe organ and painted in somber blues and greens with fat brushes.  Then I flipped it over and switched to bright reds and yellows, as we listened to the harpsichord and painted with small brushes.

Here are several title ideas, suggested by the children:

"A Fire Mountain"
"Ocean Rainbow"
"A Flower Vase"
"A Fishing Bob"
"The Hot Air Balloon"
"A Sea Serpent and Seaweed"
"The Sun is Going Down"
"Rainbow Color"
"Melting Crayons"
"Dynamite Exploding in the Water"
"An Elf Came in the Middle of the Night and Painted the Walls of a Store"
"Sunset in Alaska"
"A Scary Rainbow"
"American Cave"
"A Magical Butterfly in a Tree"
"The Volcano Explodes, and Fire Comes Out with Balls of Color"
"A Fish Swimming Away"
"I Think I See a Cello In There"
"A Tunnel"