H: What We Did (so far this Summer)

What We Did (so far this Summer)

-- by H (Grade 4 student) 26th June 2015

On the twenty-sixth of June

We went to the library at Warden and 

Steeles.

Then, we ate our meals.

We ate sushi at twelve noon.

After, with my brother, we played chess,

I won but it was a big mess!

Then, I watched a movie,

All about the Sea!

Some explanatory notes may be in order:

1. the sub-title of this poem (within brackets) is added on by the blogger. the poem is written by a 10-year-old with some input by her 12-year-old brother. they are now into the 10th day of their 2015 Summer Vacation (when summer camps are not yet in operation).

2. successful completion of a little poem (minimum 8 lines long, in rhyme) on any subject during the 1-hour long lunch will earn the writer a shiny silver coin! (the winner may pick his or her coin from my small collection which will be theirs anyway in the years to come.) sushi is of course one of her favourite meals and the granddaughter accepted the impromptu challenge. when she asked what rhymes with sushi, I said busy, lazy, but sashimi and tasty are not perfect rimes. (this time I did not ask any leading questions, just to see how she would cope).  I told her it was not necessary to rhyme sushi, one could use inversion for end rhymes, like saying: We ate sushi for lunch today. and it is far easier to find the appropriate rhyme for today! then, she became a little moody and the time limit had to be extended. 

3. line 2: this is a small Toronto public library -- Steeles Branch in Scarborough. 
her original line 2 reads:

We went to the library on Steels (sic).

(I changed that to `at Warden and Steeles` to show its exact location.) 

4. line 5: After = Afterwards, 

               After and brother are internal rhymes.

5. line 6: the girl is in fact no match for her elder brother who gave up his queen and two rooks, and he was reading a novel too while playing chess with his sister (and me)! he said we took too long to make a move. (ouch, how humiliating!)(he was last rated at 900-1,100 points, had been coached by a chess master in a small group, and is honing his skills further on a computer chessboard.)

6. lines 7 and 8: it was a BBC documentary -- The Blue Planet: Sea of Life. (highly recommended!)