Here are seven haiku poems that students wrote as part of a lesson about snowflakes. These student authors are from “Team C” at Hampton Elementary School, which combines fifth and sixth graders. The lesson integrated math, science, and social studies. Students learned that three kinds of snowflakes are most common: dendrimers, plates, and stellar plates. Dendrimers are the fluffy, feathery snowflakes, plates have six sides, and stellar plates have six broad arms, resembling a star. Students learned that snowflakes will have six points because of how the water molecules, with two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom bonding together, freeze to form snow crystals. This gives snowflakes hexagonal or six-fold symmetry, ensuring that you won’t see an eight-pointed snowflake in nature. Team C students made paper snowflakes with six-fold symmetry as part of this lesson, and they also learned about haiku.

Haiku is a style of poetry invented in Japan. Haiku poems are often about nature, they have a specific rhythmical structure, and they consist of three lines. The first line always has five beats, the second has seven beats, and the third and final line has five beats. Can you count the beats in these poems to discover that pattern? It might be fun to examine snowflakes with a magnifying glass as well to check for the six sides or points!

Snowflakes are so cold
Cold and tasty like ice cream
Scientific too

Madison

Snowflakes sprinkle high
Snowflakes come out of the clouds
The ground is white, bright

Austin

Snowflakes are pretty
They are winter’s special joy
Snowflakes are awesome

Addie

Snowflakes are pretty
Falling, shining, snow–capped hill
Beautiful snowflakes

Hudson

Dancing in the air
Snowflakes are so beautiful
When they fall down here

Lyela & Ms. Paterson

Snowflakes falling down
From the sky so beautiful
Gently to the ground

Jace

Snow comes in winter
There are three types of snowflakes
Snow: cold in winter

Niamh