Summer Poems for Children
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About Summer by Brittany Pierce
Yellow is the prevailing color of the season. It falls down from the shinning, sizzling sun and splashes off bobbing, budding flowers growing on the ground. It’s gathered up by the buzzing, bumbling bees as they zip the color away to construct a mighty yellow fortress of comb. They put the yellow into mixers and create a flowing river of sticky, golden honey.
This poem uses the color yellow to describe different things. What’s your favorite color? Write a poem about things that are your favorite color.
Lemon sparkle sun drops splatter on black asphalt, burning little pink toes and fingers that clutch colored chalk. Secrets are whispered from popsicle-sticky lips in the shade; ancient trees, guardians of innocence, summer love, green umbrellas in heat-wave down-pours. Birthdays are celebrated by cannon blasts of rainbows; cups of Kool-Aid, hotdogs and sparklers become extra limbs. The sun, a golden nectar, hangs in the sleepy sky, Blinking in between the branches and power poles, Taking photographs of smiles and twinkling eyes.
Summer Photography by Hanna Peterson
Popsicles, Kool-Aid, and Hotdogs are some of the summer foods in this poem. What foods do you like? Write a poem or draw a picture with your favorite foods in it.
Something Beautiful by Jackie Orton
Bronze curls dance across soft cheeks sitting on a blanket with white stars and red stripes gleaming from underneath her tea set. She nibbles on the cookies arranged on her plate takes a sip from an empty cup. Slender fingers carefully place the tea pot tracing the pink edging as if trying to memorize the feel. Her voice light and sweet humming—talking to friends not there. She stretches her toes and smiles rests the daisies she picked on her bear. Olive skin glistening under the dying sun her lavender dress inviting the last rays of light.
This poem is about having fun by yourself, What do you like to do by yourself? Write a poem or draw a picture about the fun things you do when you are by yourself.
by Jacqui Harrah
The summer I was nine a magical rain flooded the deser t. For a week, the water flowed along the foot worn paths and when it was finally over, the deser t was a garden. My paths were covered in a downy wild green grass that felt softer on my bare feet than the lawn I mowed every Saturday. The rain also brought life to strange things the deser t had not seen in a long time. Fireflies and toads hatched from eggs long buried beneath the pale dir t, replacing the scorpions and lizards that had fled from the unfamiliar mud. At night soft, hovering fairy lights danced to the sound of croaking toads, and I watched through my backyard fence, entranced by the unfamiliar. In two weeks this new world was replaced again by the old, the grass wilted under the summer heat and the fireflies and toads went back to sleep beneath the dir t, waiting for the day when the magical rain would come again.
Fun in the Sun by Jessica Williams
Summer comes and summer goes, as we wander down the roads. The sky is blue, the sun is hot what we need is a shady spot. Under the trees we lie scanning the big blue sky. The touch of the grass is cold grasping us with its hold. Watching as the clouds go by shouting out what we spy. As we giggle and laugh
imagining life on a giraffe. A trip to the lake for a needed break is filled with friends and fun. We stay until the day is done. Head home for some needed sleep no need for anyone to weep. More fun will soon be had, a few hours away isn’t bad. The summer continues on and the days are not yet gone.
by Kyra Lehtinen
Dry dry days after the end of school when everyone is keeping cool under tents made out of popsicle sticks and colored construction paper bits while birds strike up a raucous chorus echoing noisily throughout the forest like halls of lockers not seen since June underneath a werewolf moon as lost boys run around wild and scream joyfully in a Neverland dream where growing old is not required growing up is not admired telling fireside stories and counting stars making cardboard rockets to go to Mars skipping rocks and climbing trees jumping creeks and scraping knees slick mud oozing between bare toes wrestling with a writhing garden hose no need for sleep no need for bed until lost boys and girls nod their heads and drift off on the dewey lawn filled with soothing cricket song and firefly nightlights floating into the sky reflecting stars in half closed eyes.
by Lloyd Grimm
We look out on the summer weather. “No school today?” “No school forever!” “Go on outside,” our mothers say. “It’s nice out there, go out and play!” We dash outside to start the fun and run until it hurts our lungs. And then we fall down on our backs and run our hands through blades of grass. With balled up fists we tear out clumps, build giant hills and tiny lumps. When we’ve grown tired of pulling grass, we single clouds out as they pass. See that one just above the house, a pirate ship! And there, a mouse. That big one there next to the boat, a castle and it’s got a moat! That skinny cloud looks like a man. The round one there’s a frying pan. That one’s a sheep! So’s that one too! And that one looks a lot like you.
What do you see when you look at the clouds? Draw or describe different shaped clouds.
Magic of Summer by Mette Holden
It’s sleeping in until the sunlight creeps into your bedroom, cut into pieces by the blinds, and then covering your face with your blanket, so you can go back to sleep; it’s eating sticky watermelon on the porch, spitting the seeds into the garden, careful not to swallow them so they don’t start to grow in your stomach;
it’s walking around barefoot, feeling the cool grass, the rough asphalt, and the smooth concrete against calluses of your feet; it’s reading until all hours of the night, swimming in the pool until your skin burns pink, traveling across country with you family. Summer is dreaming during the day—pure freedom from the interruptions of school. You are who you want to be.
What about summer is magical to you? Could you write a poem or draw a picture about the magic of summer?
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Summer is‌ by David Baxley Summer is more than the season that falls after spring and springs before fall, is more than sitting quietly at your desk while holding your breath waiting for that last bell to ring. Summer is running loudly through quiet halls and no one asking to see your pass. Summer is more than sun bright yellow buses with wheels that go round and round. Summer is the apple red family car headed for the beach where my brother and I bounced up and down to the energetic beat of the back seat. Summer is leaving eager footsteps on hot dunes the way astronauts left footprints on the moon not wanting to be late to the classroom of the shore where our teacher Mrs. Atlantic would greet us with blue-green hands that waved hello. Summer is more than A is for apple and B is for ball. In summer the letters are marked on a chalkboard made of sand where A is for an Anemone that tickles Clown Fish with rainbow fingers and B is for a Boat sailing on the border of where the ocean meets the sky filling their white sail lungs with the huffing and puffing breath of the wind.
In summer two letters to watch out for are J and S because J is for Jellyfish who stings when shaking hands and S is for lookout…Shark! Summer is more than 2+2=4 and counting all the way to a hundred. Summer is for being confused when you learn that you can’t buy ice cream with Sand Dollars, for subtracting sea shells from the shore, and adding up the number of gulls circling above who cry impatient thunder waiting for your storm cloud fists to rain bread drops into salt skies. Summer is more than reading about things such as the animal kingdom and how there are insects, reptiles birds, fish, and mammals. Summer is for seeing these things for ourselves, for diving beneath the water pretending to be explorers, for playing hideand-seek with Crayola fish that live in the coral. Summer is for not being scared to be silly, for grabbing your mother’s leg while acting like a shark, for building castles out of salt and sand and then smashing through them while the Fiddler Crab knights that walk its walls click their claws and scuttle away angrily. I guess summer is more like school than I thought. Everywhere is a classroom with different and interesting ways of learning. We should greet all of these classrooms with the excitement of held breath.
My swim trunks are on and I’m ready to go. But I’m taking my time cuz that water is cold. My friends are all watching, waiting to see, if I will go first, then they’ll follow me. I run to the edge and my stomach drops. The one thing I fear is the belly flop. Crashing into the water, swimming back up and then hurry back to the edge so I can do that again.
by Denny Munson
LOOKING INTO THE WATER
But what we saw was all but false on that early summer day a hummingbird so small and light he could almost float away.
Once he was gone, we didn’t know if he had ever been for when we looked around us there was no evidence of him.
He came in like a flicker of a rainstorm’s lightning flash and caused a big commotion as, from bloom to bloom, he dashed.
by Jamie Nelson
Hummingbird Visit
This poem is about a humming bird. Write a poem or draw a picture about another of animal.
With the quick turn of his head he knew that we were there and off he went without a word dancing across the air.
His wings moved like eyelashes blinking in the sun his tong out like a needle kissed the sweet Chrysanthemum.
Popsicle Delight by Kasi Henderson
Popsicle juice runs down small fingers a bracelet of red dye. Sticky, sweet smiles tending to linger. Hot days call for a cool treat— Popsicles perfect, never neat. Impatiently biting down to the stick, where patience is tried it’s time to lick. Round and round, not fast enough. Starting to nibble Like corn on the cob. The fronts of our teeth a faint shade of pink the popsicle’s gone as fast as we blink. The hot summer days turn to warm summer nights we’ll begin again tomorrow with popsicles delight.
This poem talks about sticky popsicles. When you think of popsicles what do you think? List words that you think of when you see popsicles.
Dandelion by Kim Stapley
A treasure can be found among the wild grass and weeds. Like golden coins carelessly scattered, and forgotten along the road.
Many who walk past do not see their great worth. And others may not notice the bright beauty they mash under their foot. But when I see this yellow flower, I pluck it from a jungle of clover and thistle. Placing it in a vase to share with my friends.
Dingus the Dolt by Robert Durborow
Dingus the Dolt was very odd fellow, with his dirty old clothes and two teeth that were yellow. I’d seen him round town with his grocery cart drawing chalk on the sidewalk and calling it art, which it was, if you looked at it just the right way, in fact you might think that some people would pay, to have Dingus draw dragons, blowing fiery gouts, of many hued flame on the walk near their house, and wouldn’t you know, that’s just what some did, some rich folks in Richburg had him draw on the lids of the brown, drab, and boring bins they put on their curbs every Wednesday and Thursday up there in the burbs. So Dingus drew rainbows, and lemurs, and trees, and bees that were so real they buzzed in the breeze, such a great job he did, that strange fellow called Dingus, that no one in our town treated Dingus with meanness. In fact our own Mayor called the town for a talk, about dirty old Dingus and his drawings of chalk. “They’re great,” said the Mayor, “all these things he creates, so it only seems fitting to reciprocate and set up a day, the same one every year, we can all honor Dingus and give him a cheer for the lovely old mess he has made of our town by tracing his chalk sticks all over the ground!”
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Summer Poems for Children is provided by the Southern Utah University Literary Arts Internship. Dr. Danielle Dubrasky acted as the advisor to this internship. Jamie Nelson edited the book and the design was made by Tyce Jones in April 2011. Poetry written by Southern Utah University 2011 Advanced Poetry Class. Sponsored by the Utah Humanities Council and the Southern Utah University Student Association.
2011
Reading is fun.
In this book you can read poems and write some of your own! There’s also room to draw or color. The poems talk about summer and will be great fun during your summer break.
Southern Utah University Literary Arts Internship