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This Year Will Be Different
Author Unknown

This year will be different.
This year I'll be neat.
My notebook paper
Will stay clean - every single sheet!
My desk will stay straightened,
My locker clean, too,
My new pencil case
Will stay looking new.
I'll wash out my thermos
Before it smells sour.
I'll do my homework.
In less than an hour.
I won't dilly-dally.
I'll never be late.
I'll eat everything
That is on my plate.
This year will be different
Perfection I seek!
Well, at least I will try
For at least the first week.

The First Day of School
By Judith Viorst

Will they let me go when I need to
go to the bathroom?
And what if I get lost on my way
back to class?
And what if all the other kids are
a hundred, a thousand, a million
times smarter than I am?
And what if we have a spelling test,
Or a reading test, or an...
anything test, and I'm the only
person who doesn't pass?

And what if the teacher decides
that she doesn't like me?
And what if, all of a sudden,
a tooth gets loose?
And what if I can't find my lunch,
or I sit on my lunch, or I (oops!)
drop my lunch down someplace
like the toilet?
Will they just let me starve or will
somebody lend me a sandwich?
A cookie? A cracker? An apple?
Some juice?

And what if they say, "Do this,"
and I don't understand them?
And what if there's teams, and
nobody picks me to play?
And what if I took off my sneakers,
and also my socks, and also my
jeans, and my sweatshirt and T-shirt,
And started the first day of school
on the second day?

September

I already know where Africa is
and I already know how to
count to ten and
I went to school every day last year,
why do I have to go again?

Lucille Clifton
N O W

Close the barbeque.
         Close the sun.
Close the home-run games we won.
    Close the picnic.
          Close the summer.
                Open school.

Prince Redcloud
Back to School

When summer smells like apples
and shadows feel cool
and falling leaves make dapples
of color on the pool
and wind is in the maples
and sweaters are the rule
and hazy days spell lazy ways,
it's hard to go to school.

But I go!

Aileen Fisher
Columbus
When Columbus left the shore of Spain,
He was sure as he could be.
He sailed off to the West Indies,
Looking for silk, and gold, and tea.

He sailed with many others,
In ships across the sea:
The Nina and the Pinta;
The Santa Maria made three.

"Land Ho!" was cried, and all looked out
Upon this strange, new land.
The sandy beach, the beautiful trees,
It was all so lovely and grand!

Today we know what he did not;
He'd found a different spot.
On Columbus Day we think of him.
We owe him quite a lot!
The Squirrel's Arithmetic
Author Unknown

High on the branch of a walnut tree
   A bright-eyed squirrel sat.
What was he thinking so earnestly?
   And what was he looking at?

The forest was green around him,
   The skies were blue overhead;
His nest was in a hollow limb,
   and his children were snug in bed.

He was doing a problem over and over,
   Busily thinking was he:
How many nuts for his winter's store
   Could he hide in the hollow tree?

He sat so still on the swaying bough,
  You might have thought him asleep.
Oh no!!   He was trying to figure out now
   How many nuts the babies could eat.

Then suddenly he frisked about,
   And down the tree he ran.
"The best way to do it, without a doubt,
   Is to gather all I can."

On Halloween

We mask our faces
and wear strange hats
and moan like witches
and screech like cats
and jump like goblins
and thump like elves
and almost manage
to scare ourselves.

     Aileen Fisher



Song of the Witches
By William Shakespeare
Handout
             Pumpkin Head
We bought a pumpkin big and round
the lived the summer through
without an eye to look at things
and now it looks through two.

It used to be all dark inside
when growing on the vine,
but now it has a toothy smile
and face that's full of shine.

    Aileen Fisher

Mary Had Some Bubble Gum

Mary had some bubble gum,
she chewed it long and slow,
and everywhere that Mary went
her gum was sure to go.
She chewed the gum in school one day,
which was against the rule.
The teacher took her pack away
and chewed it after school.

Anonymous
An Autumn Day

Pumpkins in the cornfields,
Gold among the brown,
Leaves of rust and scarlet
Trembling slowly down;
Birds that travel southward,
Lovely time to play;
Nothing is as pleasant
As an autumn day!

Carmen Lagos Signes
The Leaves of the Trees
(sung to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus)

The leaves of the trees
turn orange and red
orange and red
orange and red.
The leaves of the trees
turn orange and red
All through the town.

The leaves of the trees
come tumbling down,
tumbling down,
tumbling down.
The leaves of the trees
come tumbling down
All through the town.

next verse:
The leaves of the trees
go swish, swish, swish
Warm Mittens
I wiggle my left hand,
I wiggle my right,
inside of my mittens,
so warm and so tight.
I wiggle my pinkie.
I wiggle my thumb,
so when I make snowballs,
my hands don't get numb.

The Short Life of A Mitten
I'm sliding on the driveway,
I'm falling off my sled,
I'm rolling down the hillside,
I'm standing on my head.
When playing in a snowbank
It's hard to control.
I wonder how my mittens
got such a large hole!

Red Mittens
Is there anything nicer
Than red woolly mittens
As fluffy and soft
As a blanket of kittens?

Red mittens to keep
My hands warm as toast
On cold winter days
When I skate or coast.
The Mitten:  for Jan Brett's Mitten
(to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell"

The mitten on the ground.
The mitten on the ground.
Heigh-ho!  It's cold outside.
The mitten on the ground.
The (mole) snuggles in.
The (mole) snuggles in.
Heigh-ho!  It's cold outside.
The (mole) snuggles in.
  (after the last animal, all                   pretend to sneeze and fall out of       the mitten)


The Mitten Song

"Thumbs in the thumb-place,
Fingers all together!"
This is the song
We sing in mitten-weather.
When it is cold,
It doesn't matter whether
Mittens are wool,
Or made of finest leather.
This is the song
We sing in mitten-weather:
"Thumbs in the thumb-place,
Fingers all together!"

Marie Louise Allen
This Year Will Be Different

This year will be different.
This year I'll be neat.
My notebook paper
will stay clean - every single sheet!
My desk will stay straightened,
My locker clean, too.
My new pencil case
Will stay looking new.
I'll wash out my thermos
Before it smells sour.
I'll do my homework,
In less than an hour.
I won't dilly-dally.
I'll never be late.
I'll eat everything
That is on my plate.
This year will be different.
Perfection I seek!
Well, at least I will try
For at least the first week!
                       -Author Unknown

Poetry From the Internet
Fall Poems from Internet
Apple Poetry.htm
Thanksgiving from Internet
Hiawatha by Longfellow
Back to School Poetry Handout
Back-to-School Blues
  by Bobbi Katz
  Just wiggling my toes
  in my brand new shoes.
  Guess I’ve got a case
  of the back-to-school blues.
  Shiny new notebook
  with nothing inside it.
  Feeling kind of scared –
  trying to hide it.
  What’s waiting for me
  behind a classroom door?
  A brand new teacher
  I’ve never seen before!
  Maybe she’s a good one.
  Maybe she’s bad news.
  I’m just a-wiggling,
  just a-jiggling –
  got those back-to-school blues.