Poetry for All!

We were happy to welcome the grades 3, 4 and 5 from St. Thomas' on Friday to learn all about poetry.  They worked hard and wrote some beautiful poems to take back to school.

We started the day by reading and analysing the work of some famous poets.  The children uncovered a number of elements which make poetry so different from other language genres.

Next we tried to understand the reasons why people write poems and what inspires poets.  One of the poems we had read was called 'Flint'; the poet, Christina Rossetti, had taken her inspiration from how precious and magical a flint can be compared to all the stones and metals we usually think of as precious.  The children used a flint to start a fire and to better understand how the poet had felt.

Then we went in search of our own inspiration in the Hazelhut grounds......

.....we looked in the vegetable garden and even tasted some fresh vegetables to excite our senses.....

....then we looked in the Chestnut grove......

.....and in the fields...

.....and finally everyone found something to write about!

After a well deserved lunch, the children worked on their ideas, making a rough copy first and then improving towards a good copy.  They were very diligent workers and all came up with interesting ideas.  Last of all they illustrated their work with water colour crayons and paint.

To end the day, each child read out their poem and was awarded with a poet's pen and pencil, so keep writing everyone, after all, you're poets now!