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Introducing and exploring poetry
The activities in the resource will help you introduce poetry to P4-7 pupils.
The resource explores poems by Michael Rosen, Joseph Coelho, Joshua Seigal and James Carter and is divided into four areas: quick activities to introduce poetry; performing poetry; creating a poetry friendly classroom; and poetry toolkit.
At the bottom of this page you will find a video of Joseph Coelho reading the poem May from his collection A Year of Nature Poems. You could use many of the activities in this resource with this poem and video.
Introduce poetry
- Dicussion points: what is poetry? (estimated time: 20-30mins)
- Watch a poet perform their work (estimated time: 10-15mins)
- Compare and contrast poems (estimated time: 15-20mins)
- Introducing rhythm and sound games (estimated time: 10-15mins)
Performing poetry
- Planning a performance (estimated time: 2-3hours spread over multiple days)
- Performing poetry- other resources (estimated time: 1-2 hours)
Creating a poetry friendly space
- Poem of the week (estimated time: 10-15mins per week)
- Daily poem (estimated time: 5mins per day)
- Jigsaw poems (estimated time: 15-20mins)
- Quick on the draw (estimated time: 10mins)
- Poetry slide show (estimated time: 20-30mins)
- Making music (estimated time: 45mins- 1 hour)
- Poetry envoys (estimated time: 20-25mins)
Poetry toolkit for writing
- Word association game (estimated time: 5-10mins)
- M.O.R.E.R.A.P.S (estimated time: 30mins)
- Senses (estimated time: 15-20mins)
- Class poem (estimated time: 30mins- 1 hour)