Becoming Spring

For this activity, you will need an adult, paper, and coloring materials.

Read April Halprin Wayland’s “Budding Scholars” and Margarita Engle’s “Peering Up From Mud,” two poems in which the poet imagines what it would be like to be invited into the world of plants and animals. If you were a plant or an animal, what would you be?

Look out of a window at the spring that has sprung outside. Use your poet’s observation skills to find one especially beautiful or eye-catching plant or animal. Observe as many details as you can. Then, try to draw it without looking at your page, letting your observation skills lead you. Now look at your drawing. Does it look how you expected? Does it look more interesting, more menacing, or more beautiful? This drawing game is called blind contour. Blind contour is like writing a poem, because you may surprise yourself along the way of making it. You may find a new perspective.

Now think: What would it be like if this plant or animal could speak? What would it tell us? Under your drawing, write the story of this plant or animal, what its day is like, or how it feels about spring.