Spring: First daffodils of spring - KS1

You will need

• A vase of spring flowers, particularly daffodils
• Image supplied

Introduction for teachers
Spring flowers have a strong emotional impact. They signal the awakening of life after winter, and the return of colour and beauty to a land that has seemed drab and dark. This assembly attempts to evoke some of that emotion and convey the feelings that spring and spring flowers have inspired in poets and artists over the centuries.

Introduction for children
Do you like these beautiful flowers? All flowers are beautiful, but these are especially beautiful because they are the flowers of spring. They signal to us that the darkness and cold of winter is gradually fading away and being replaced by the light and colour and sunshine that will lead to summer days.

Of course, none of that happens suddenly. We'll still have cold days, and rainy days and maybe some miserable days. But gradually things are changing. The days are getting longer, the nights are shorter. The sun is with us for longer, and so we feel warmer for most of the time. We are reminded of that because wherever we look in parks and gardens and in the countryside, we see the flowers of spring; and one of the most cheerful of those flowers is the daffodil.

There are many kinds of daffodils, but the ones we seem to like are the ones that look as if they're blowing a trumpet. Can you see the daffodil's trumpet? Maybe she wants to play a cheerful tune to welcome the spring.

Story
Graham was standing with his gran at the bus stop by the park. They'd been shopping together and now it was time to go home and have a cup of tea and a cake before Graham's mum picked him up.

‘Just look at the park,' said Gran. ‘Don't the daffs look wonderful in the sunshine. They seem to have appeared all of a sudden. They weren't like this last week.'

‘Daffs?' said Graham. ‘Is that what those flowers are?'

‘It's short for daffodils,' said Gran. ‘One of my favourite flowers because it comes out in spring. And those are the first ones I've seen this year - or at least the first time I've seen a proper display like that. See how beautiful they look against the green grass and under the trees with the boating pond in the background. It's always best when there's a whole lot of them like that. They seem to have a lovely glow, like sunshine. It reminds me of a poem we learned at school.

‘Which one's that?' asked Graham.

‘My memory's not what it was,' said Gran. ‘So I'll try and remember it while we're on the bus, and then I'll recite it when we have a drink and piece of cake at home. It's a beautiful poem, about daffodils growing beside a lake, and under the trees, just like those. But I do know who wrote it.'

‘Who?' said Graham. ‘Shakespeare was it?'

‘No. Someone nearly as famous called William Wordsworth. He wrote the poem after he'd seen daffodils by a lake near his home in the English Lake District. He was feeling quite depressed that day, thinking about his younger brother John who had died not long before in a shipwreck.'

‘So the daffodils cheered him up?'

‘Yes. And he was with his sister Dorothy, who was also a great comfort to him. You know, I know just how he felt.'

‘How do you mean, Gran?' said Graham.

‘Well, I've been feeling a bit down since your granddad died,' said Gran. ‘I get worse in the winter when the nights are long and lonely. So seeing all those lovely cheerful daffodils does help. And it helps that you are with me, too. You're always good at cheering me up.'

She hugged Graham, who was a bit embarrassed, especially at the bus stop, but he quite liked it really and he was glad his gran thought that he cheered her up.

Conclusion
Later, in Gran's house, they sat with a cup of tea and a piece of gran's fruit cake, and Graham said, ‘Have you remembered that poem yet?'

‘Oh yes,' said Gran. ‘That's why I was quiet on the bus. I was trying to remember it.'

‘Go on then,' said Graham. ‘I'm listening.'

So Gran put down her cup and cleared her throat, and said;

‘Daffodils, by William Wordsworth.

‘I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.'

After Gran had recited the poem, she and Graham sat quietly for a while. Graham didn't understand every word of the poem, but he enjoyed the rhythm of it.

‘That was really good, Gran,' he said. ‘When you did the bit about the daffodils fluttering and dancing, I could sort of see them in my mind.'

‘That's great,' said Gran. ‘Because the whole poem is really about seeing the daffodils in your mind, not just seeing them on the day when you're there. You can imagine William Wordsworth seeing the daffodils and thinking how nice they were. Then when he got home and was sitting or lying on his settee, the picture coming back to his mind and making him think. That's something we all do when we see or hear something beautiful. We enjoy it at the time, but then we enjoy it even more when we have chance to stop and think about it.'

‘What was that bit at the end?' said Graham. ‘About dancing?'

‘And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils,' said Gran.

‘That's it,' said Graham. ‘That's what we feel like isn't it?'

A prayer
We thank you Lord for the flowers of spring. We thank you for the changing seasons that work together to make our world beautiful and alive. And we thank the poets and painters and musicians who can bring the beauty of nature to life in their work.

A thought
There's much delight to be had from remembering good times and beautiful experiences.

Things to think about
Wordsworth's poem is about daffodils. But it's about more than that. It's about how important the memories of good things we've seen or experienced are to us.

Spend some time silently thinking of your good memories. You could write or draw something, or simply think. Then pay attention to how that makes you feel inside.

Further information

• Learn more about which flowers signal the start of spring
• A timeline of William Wordsworth's life
• Daffodils by William Wordsworth