"Nature's first green is gold..."

These words by Robert Frost became particularly relevant as 8th graders searched their neighborhoods and yards for the first signs of spring! For the second week of "Show & Tell Tuesday," Mrs. Sanders encouraged students to go outside and photograph the signs of spring around their homes. 8th graders were on the lookout for budding flowers and green sprouts!

As 8th graders submitted blossoming shrubs and captured the first glimpses of green, they were reminded of the poem they read in English class: Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay." While finding pink flowers in trees, yellow bushes, and drooping white petals, the 8th grade class better understood what Frost literally and figuratively meant when he wrote, "Her early leaf's a flower." It was a great, hands-on approach to celebrate April as National Poetry Month!

Edith M. Thomas's poem, "Talking in their Sleep," also finds itself relevant this "Show & Tell Tuesday" and pairs well with Frost's work. 

Read Frost's classic poem as you scroll through the 8th grade's spring photographs!

"Nature’s first green..."




"...is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold."



"Her early leaf’s a flower;"




"But only so an hour."




"Then leaf subsides to leaf."



"So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay."

The 8th grade read Robert Frost's "Nothing Gold Can Stay," in their English class. They explored theme, examined word choice (e.g. compared "subsides," "sank," and "goes down"), and analyzed figurative language (e.g. personification, allusion, metaphor, etc.) in the poem during a week-long mini-unit.