by Betsy Franco
One hundred fleas can make you itchy,
one hundred gnats can cloud your eyes.
When a pup runs on the beach,
one hundred birds take off and fly.
One hundred tulips burst in springtime,
one hundred sparklers in July.
One hundred wishes make a dreamer,
underneath a starry sky.
I wrote one hundred poems for the 100th day of school. This is one of them. Some are funny, some serious. They’re about patchwork quilts, bug parades, temperature, years, centipedes, gardens, chicken pox, grandparents, and on and on.
I had a great time collecting ideas for the poem “One Hundred Sparklers.” Can you come up with another verse or two? Give it a try!
Betsy Franco is the author of over 80 books, including a number of poetry collections. Her first was Mathematickles!–math haiku. Others include A Curious Collection of Cats, A Dazzling Display of Dogs, Messing Around on the Monkey Bars and Other School Poems in Two Voices, Counting Our Way to the 100th Day!, and Bees, Snails, & Peacock Tails. She also wrote a book especially for teachers of grades K-12, Conversations with a Poet.
Making math and science creative, sassy, and beautiful through poetry is one of her main goals. She even included poetry in her novel, Metamorphosis, Junior Year. Betsy encourages children to use her poetry as a jumping off place for their own creativity. Their poems are always delightful and insightful!