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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.