Last week, we took a closer look at the world of figurative language with our lesson on metaphors. Our 4th and 5th graders have a good grasp on similes, so it was nice expanding our knowledge together on what makes metaphors different. We first read the poem “Happiness” by a fellow Chicago Poetry Center student Keleia R. from Dever Elementary and together, talked about each metaphor we found in the poem. Students then watched a quick clip from Inside Out, a movie that uses metaphors to explain how different feelings function. After the clip, students thought about their own emotions and drew sketches of people, places, or things that brought on that feeling. There were lots of clever drawings that students used to inspire their poems using metaphors. Check out some shining examples of our poems from last week below.
4th Grade
Feelings
by Morgan B.
Fear is a spider
scaring me to death.
with eight legs,
spiders are animals with no emotions.
Grumpy is waking up in the morning.
Waking up is hard. Making me mad
cause I have to wake up.
Disgust is sushi.
When I eat it I gag.
Raw fish is disgusting.
If you at it, you would gag too!
Yamarion G.
Happiness is Fortnite.
I win a lot of games.
Anger is NBA 2K22.
Everyone cheats.
Disgust is old food.
It smells bad and is gross.
5th Grade
Feelings
Aryah P.
Anger is when you cut your
Hair on accident and get
Scolded.
Fear is snow when there’s a 100 percent
Chance you crash into a tree.
Disgust is when you see a dead animal on the side of the world.
Feelings
Kiyon C.
Happiness is my big cousin. When I see him I am much happier when I do.
Fear is a kangaroo. It punches you and it chases you.
Excitement my little brother so he can play the game with me and his birthday.
