During my second classroom visit, I had the kids write brief sentences on scrap paper. I collected those pieces of paper and placed them in my supplies bag. Later that evening, I pulled them out. Here are some of the first phrases I read:
Love, no war.
If there’s no people, there will be no love.
No mom or dad, no love,
No kids, no friends.
The earth can’t live without love.
Whoa. These kids hit the intensity out of the ballpark. While a message about zero population, isolation and loneliness wouldn’t work on a quilt intended to give love, joy and happiness to its recipient, it makes for a good song.
And just to be fair (and to even-out those weighty thoughts), I also received these:
Be happy.
Exploding love.
Be grateful for joy.
Love your life.
Thank you earth.
We love you, earth.
However, out of the remaining phrases, I found a common theme. And it had nothing to do with love, joy and happiness. It was something more concrete. Those wrinkled pieces of paper spoke about sleep (after all, we’re making a quilt).
I didn’t have to do much. I just typed those sentences into the computer and read them aloud. And wouldn’t you know: those kids had created a group poem. It wasn’t short. It would require more work than I had intended. But it followed along beautifully with the teacher’s lesson on magical phrases and free verse. And if I was going to get it just right, I needed six more words. No more, no less.
Two girls were willing to help find those final thoughts. One girl repeated, “Happy Earth Day!” over and over until I finally jotted it down on my pad of paper. The other girl became so excited, she practically shouted, “I sleep with my quilt! My quilt makes me tired! It is night with my quilt!”
In the end, we captured those six words to complete our group poem. And here’s what our quilt is going to say:
Good night.
I love life.
I love light.
Good night up above,
It is night.
Stars give us light.
Good dreams,
My nice night.
With my dream quilt,
I fly.
