Our own "Dumb Soldiers": Robert Louis Stevenson project

This activity can be used to address the following Next Generation Science Standards 

K-ESS2-1.	Use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time

K-ESS2-2.	Construct an argument supported by evidence for how plants and animals (including humans) can change the environment to meet their needs.

April is poetry month, and we are doing a few simple poetry projects.  Poetry has always been one of my favorite subjects.

Last week, we read A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson.

We started by reading "The Dumb Soldier", a poem about a toy soldier left purposely in the yard so that he could report on the goings on there.   I pointed out how Stevenson chose words that paint a beautiful picture.  We went over a few terms that I expected to be tricky, like "dumb".  We talked about what was meant by "sea" of grass, and whether the soldier could actually see.

T-Rex and the Pony Artist created their own soldiers from our store of clean trash and a few other craft supplies. Before they started, we discussed what types of material would do well outside in the rain.

Here are the finished soldiers!

They found stations for their soldiers in the yard where they felt they would be safe.

All week we enjoyed more selections from A Child's Garden of Verses. T-Rex  and Pony Artist enjoyed their own yard and the spring weather.  On Friday, they were eager to bring in their soldiers and write their own tales.

Thank-you to Christy of Christy's House of Chaos for inspiring our poetry studies.  She wrote a fascinating post on Christina Rossetti  includes some great extension activities. You can check it out at http://housefulofchaos.com/christina-rossetti/.

Happy April Fools!  In honor of the holiday, I purposely included some misinformation in this post. Can you guess what it is?