Ten days ago, in Washington, we got snow. It started falling around midnight on Friday night, the first evening of my two-week school break. It was bliss. There's something about magical about a first snow. There's something so quieting about snow (especially if you don't have to go to work the next day). As a friend from Brittany wrote recently when they got an unexpected snowstorm, La neige a suspendu le temps... ce silence blanc me fait penser à toi... I especially like to be tucked away snugly at home, which we were since it was the first day of school vacation. When I go back to teaching on January 4, my students will get a full dose of snow poems. The first graders will learn Snow by Mary Ann Hoberman. For the second graders, we'll learn Dust of Snow by Robert Frost. The third graders will learn The Snowflake by Walter de la Mare. The fourth graders will learn The Frost Pane by David McCord. The fifth graders will learn Stopping by Woods on A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost. I am lucky to be their teacher. I am lucky to be able to immerse myself and them in these wonderful poems.
Here are the poems.
Snow by Mary Ann Hoberman
Snow
Snow
Lots of snow
Everywhere we look and everywhere we go
Snow in the sandbox
Snow on the slide
Snow on the bicycle
Left outside
Snow on the steps
And snow on my feet
Snow on the sidewalk
Snow on the sidewalk
Snow on the sidewalk
Down the street.
Dust of Snow by Robert Frost
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
The Snowflake by Walter de la Mare
Before I melt,
Come, look at me!
This lovely icey filigree!
Of a great forest
In one night
I make a wilderness
Of white:
By skyey cold
Of crystals made
All softly, on
Your finger laid.
I pause, that you
My beauty see:
Breathe; and I vanish
Instantly.
The Frost Pane by David McCord
What's the good of breathing
On the window pane
In summer?
You can't make a frost
On the window pane
In summer.
You can't write a
Nalphabet
You can't draw a
Nelephant:
You can't make a smudge
With your nose
In summer.
Lots of good, breathing
On the window pane
In winter.
You can make a frost
On the window pane
In winter.
A white frost, a light frost
A quick frost, a thick frost
A write-me-out-a-picture frost
Across the pane
In winter.
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are, I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
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