I hope you have found your lovely Christmas card that was sent home today!  This class enjoy craft work and created really striking winter tree paintings for their cards.

We also used these pictures to inspire us to do some creative writing.  We went out into the nature garden to look at the winter trees and gather words, phrases and ideas for our work.  Back in class, we looked at various free style poems to give us more inspiration before creating our own.  The poems needed to sound as if we were having a conversation with the tree.  They needed to have questions and repetition within it and they were not to rhyme.  This proved harder than we thought!  Some excellent pieces were created, very quickly.  Here are some of my favourite lines…

Dream and dream until the sun shines through to wake you up, winter tree.          (Amy)

Tall and elegant, but dead looking inside so bare and brown.  (Fergus)

Will your leaves ever return?  Lying dormant on the ground but in the summer you’re tall and proud.  (Magnus)

Trees do you hear me?  How do you feel?  What do you see?  Dusted with frost.  (Fiona)

Oh winter tree, how do you survive the harsh, harsh cold winter?  (Matthew)

Oh cold frosty tree, how do you stand so strong and proud in the strong winter breeze? (Hannah)

I’ll speak to you next year but now it’s time to sleep, sleep, sleep. (Isabel)

No reply came from the winter tree.  Then I wonder… Is he alive? (Robbie)

The newly fallen snow is…hair.  It’s winter, tree.  (Ellie)

I don’t know how you can stand so tall and proud in this bitter wind.  (Kelsi)

Are you cold?  Surely you are!  Will your leaves ever come back?  You’re so naked.  Soon your leaves will return.  Just keep dreaming and dreaming.  (Liam)

Oh tree so cold, bent and old.  Your pine cones so spiky.  Do you feel it if you bend so bold? (Kathryn)

Winter tree, your leaves have fallen.  You’re covered in a cloak of snow.  You are freezing in the bitter temperatures.  (Bella)

How do you live outside in the cold lifeless winter, tree?  You must have thick skin.   (Bobby)

You dream about the summer and the flowers and the grass and how you’ll have leaves at last.  (Ava)

Winter tree, how can you live like this…in the vast winter wind where your life has faded…?  (Abi)

Yes, yes, yes!  I can get cold on the outside but in the inside I can feel happiness.  (Anders)

Do you want my jacket?  Wait, no, that strong, insulating bark of yours will surely keep you warm.  (Evie)

Mum said you’re dreaming of spring with your green, vibrant leaves but I can not see it!  (Fearne)

Bare, chilly and frosty, you need some warmth.  Dream of spring, summer, flowers and the sun.  (Tory)

Your fantastic green leaves, gone but when summer comes around, you will be remade and beautiful once again.  (Koll)

That’s too many questions!  Let me stand here until spring!  (Hayden)

Are you ever going to take off in this winter breeze?  Swaying in the wind, bare and cold.  (Kayla)

The full versions of our poems will be displayed in school next term.  Please feel free to come and have a read in the new year!