The following collection of haiku was created by school age children at Kids N Fitness Day Care in Decatur, Illinois. These children are in kindergarten and first grade. I first showed the students examples of previous haiku from my own work. I told the children that haiku captured an image or memory that stands out to them. I wrote a couple of haiku in front of them to demonstrate how you go about, processing a haiku. I then let them begin.

Most of the children did very well with writing haiku as you can tell from their work. However, the most frustrating part of this project was teaching the children that haiku does not have to rhyme. Almost every child tried to make each line rhyme. Once we overcame this boundary, the children enjoyed writing the haiku. I started out with one or two children writing with me, and *in a matter of ten minutes, I had a table full of children wanting to write haiku.

When they had completed the haiku, I asked them to draw a picture to illustrate the image or feeling they were trying to capture. All of the haiku is about memories, their favorite things, or aspects associated with summer. Because these children love art, they really enjoyed illustrating their haiku!

Finally, I compiled the collection and typed it out on the computer. I then pasted each child's haiku and illustration onto a separate page of the book with the author's name at the bottom of the page.

None of the children knew the meaning of haiku. Not one student had ever read or written any haiku. As a future elementary teacher, this bothered me. Haiku is a door for students to be creative and capture emotions, memories, and special moments to them. It is a form of individual expression that students could truly enjoy and learn a great deal from experiencing. While observing the children, I noticed how much fun they were having while learning about a new culture and form of poetry. Therefore, I learned a very valuable lesson from this project; as a future elementary teacher, I will definitely be teaching and implementing haiku into my curriculum!

                                         —Jenny McGeehon