Poetry Across The Curriculum: Bee! I'm Expecting You! – A Poetry Break

INTRODUCTION
This poem written by the classic poet Emily Dickinson is wonderful to share when spring is beginning to bloom or when you’re introducing the concept of letters. Come with other poetry books about spring. To prepare for sharing and add to the fun, copy the poem on a page of stationary and put it in enveloped addressed “From: Fly, To: Bee.”

POEM

Bee! I’m Expecting You!
By Emily Dickinson

Bee! I’m expecting you!
Was saying Yesterday
To Somebody you know
That you were due –

The Frogs got Home last Week –
Are settled, and at work –
Birds, mostly back –
The Clover warm and thick –

You’ll get my Letter by
The seventeenth; Reply
Or better, be with me –
Yours, Fly.

EXTENSION
Invite the children to share their ideas of who would be friends and who would be expecting to see each other when winter is over and spring is coming. Have then write their own letter according to their ideas, whether in verse or not. Have them also write a letter to one of their own friends (human or animal or a thing of nature) about what they’re going to do now that spring is here.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
This poem is from:

Hull, Robert. 1991. Spring Poems. Illus. by Annabel Spenceley. Austin, TX: Steck-Vaughn Library. ISBN: 0811478025.