Nature Poetry

What You Need:

• White or light colored construction paper
• Pencil
• 2 sheets of card stock or other thick paper
• Hole punch
• Thin ribbon
• Scissors
• Colored pencils
• Watercolor paint and paintbrush (optional)
• Seasonal natural materials such as leaves or flowers (optional)
• Glue (optional)

What You Do:

1. Start by choosing a season for the book. It's easiest to do the current season, but you can choose any season you want.
2. Weather permitting, take a trip outdoors with a few sheets of construction paper and a pencil and encourage your child to compose a few simple poems inspired by the landscape and natural scene around them. Talk to your child about rhyme while they write; poems don't have to rhyme, but word choice is always important.
3. Once your child finishes writing the poems, invite them to create simple illustrations next to them with the colored pencils and watercolors. Encourage your child to base their illustrations on nature, drawing the landscape, a tree, or a moss-covered rock.
4. Now create a cover for the book using the card stock. Help your child think of a title for their book of poetry and have your child write it on one of the sheets of card stock.
5. Invite your child to create an illustration on the cover with the color pencils and watercolors.
6. Have your child stack the sheets of poems together in the order they want them and place the cover on top and the second sheet of card stock on the bottom.
7. Punch two holes in the left side of the stack, about 2 inches down from the top and bottom edges.
8. Cut two short pieces of ribbon and have your child thread one through each hole in the stack to bind it into a book. Tie the ribbons in bows.
9. At the end, decorate the book by gluing found natural objects such as leaves or flowers to the cover or inside pages.

Try this activity in a different season and create a whole library of nature-inspired poetry books.