Learning about Haiku Poems

We've been using the Inquiry Model to learn all about different types of writing this term. One group wanted to do poetry so we've been researching and finding out what we need to know to be able to write awesome poems. It's been fun being able to build our own knowledge!

Today we worked with Miss H and talked about Haiku poems. We found out that they are Japanese poems and most of them are about nature. Often the first idea seems like it doesn't have much to do with the last idea. They are not rhyming poems and if the sentence doesn't fit on one line, you can fit the rest of it on another. When you read a Haiku, you only pause where there are commas, fullstops and dashes, you don't stop just because it changes line. We use a capital letter at the beginning of each line like in all poems.

We learnt that Haiku's have three lines. The first one has five syllables, the next one has seven syllables and the last has five syllables. You can join two or more Haiku's together if you like to make a longer one.

A syllable is when you've divided a word into parts that sound right. Here is an example of me clapping out the syllables in this Haiku poem from the internet.

As the wind does blow

Across the trees. I see the

Buds blooming in May.

We looked at examples from this website and thought they were good ones and then we applied our understanding and made our own ones!! Here are some of them - we're still working on them. What do you think so far?

By Hossain

(PS - Hana taught up about Tanka poems which are very similar but have two extra lines at the bottom, both with seven syllables. So it's 5, 7, 5, 7 and 7 syllables.)

As the birds flap in

The sky, the wind blows them away

Into the distance.

(by Hossain)

Cherry blossoms bloom

As the sun stops hiding

Behind the grey clouds.

(by Dani)

As the heat rises

While the frost turns to dew,

The buds blossom out.

(by Tearno and Nathan)