My first sessions with Nettelhorst 2nd graders were a joy! Their teachers had recently concluded a poetry unit and students were excited to delve into it some more. My hat goes off to Nettelhorst teachers for making my job feel so great! I shared that when I was a younger poet, I’d thought it was important for my poems to have answers, but as I began to learn from other poets, I found that questions are often the inspiration for poems. We looked at excerpts from an illustrated edition of Pablo Neruda’s Book of Questions, which includes lines such as “Where can you find a bell/That rings inside your dreams?” and “Where does the rainbow end,/ In your soul or on the horizon?” and when I asked students to comment on things they noticed about the poem’s question, one student said “They’re like riddles.” We also read “Where is My Watch?” written by a former 2nd grader at another school. Students brainstormed great questions, some of which you can enjoy here.
Ms. Thornborough
2nd Grade
Juan Martin M.C.
Why when I dream good
I wake up?
Why when I dream bad
I don’t wake up?
I don’t get it!
Lia A.
How do you paint with the
colors of the wind?
What would I do this weekend?
Would the fish come out of the sea,
land on a mountain and go into the trees?
Does the wind come down from the
trees then I can paint with the
colors of the wind?
Kam A.
Why is life so hard?
Why are there so many questions?
Why is life so frustrating?
Why do things make you question life?
Marielle B.
How many weeks is in a month
10? 11? 20?
I have no idea!
I do not know!
I do not know!
Where is my phone? Where is my phone?!
It can glow pretty light
in the night.
I do not know
I do not know.
Leah C.
What questions should I do next?
How many people are hungry right now?
Why is my name Leah?
Why is paint messy?
How are we growing?
Why do I have a body?
How do people make fake plants?
Harry K.
What happens when you die?
Are trees immortal or do they
come back to life?
Can space end?
What is the meaning of life?
Is love good?
Arthur P.
What if you stand forever under a rainbow
Would you turn into a rainbow?
How does water refresh you?
How did people invent words if they couldn’t
talk about which words to
use because no words = no talking?
Rian S.
Why do I wake up early?
How did he do that?
Which direction am I going?
Did they hurt your feelings?
Were they being kind?
Do you know 100 + 100?
Why do you think that?
Why are we in this world?
What are we going to do for math?
Why is school important?
Alastair H.
Is there such things as a
dragon? Can you go to the dream
world? Is there such thing
as a wizard? Does magic
exist? How was the universe
created?
Ms. Barbeau
2nd Grade
Teddy J.
Do poems make sense?
Are poems true?
Are all poems serious?
How do planes stay up?
What was the first things on
Earth? How was the world created?
How big is the Earth?
Audrey D.
Why do we sleep in beds?
What are we gonna have for breakfast?
How can twins fit and grow in one belly?
Where was I when I was not
born yet?
How can hair grow when they
are not living on living people?
Valerie
How do you dream?
Why does music make you want to
dance?
How do clocks always know the time?
Why do we get hungry?
How do our eyes see?
I wonder if we move us, or our brain?
Ms. Froman
2nd Grade
What Would Happen If There Were No Grown Ups?
by Mariam M.
I wonder…
what would happen
if
there’s no
grown ups? No more
rules!! But no more
kisses before bed. But…
we can walk
by ourselves! But we can
get hurt. I guess it is kind of
bad to have no grown ups.
When you sleep
by Alex K.
What happens when you sleep?
What happens when you sleep?
does your life stop?
another world is opening
you open a world
your life is floating
you wake up in a new world
maybe you just sleep.
Toothpaste
by Ayla S.
Where does
my toothpaste fly off to?
Does it get breaked
down in my
belly or
fly off to
toothpaste
shore? Does
it fly out
the chamber
or land
on the shore?
What is in Other Galaxies
by Louie B.
What is in other
galaxies? a tropical
paradise? a zombie
apocalypse? or the
future? Who knows?
Why do we daydream?
by Wynter A.
Why do we daydream? is
it because we need to
think or because
reality is boring? Maybe we
get tired. who knows?
So I wonder why we day
dream. its a question we may
never know.
I
