Inside Out Metaphors

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.