This half term, we have been reading poems from Matt Goodfellow’s book, Bright Bursts of Colour. By looking at his poems, we have been able to explore a wide range of themes – some silly and some sensitive. We started off the unit by reading a mixture of his poems and choosing one that we connected with before working in a group to perform it. The children have enjoyed using their personal notebooks as poetry journals to jot down their thoughts and ideas for their own poems.
In one lesson, we read ‘If cats had flavoured fur’. We then had 15 minutes of quiet time to jot down any ideas that popped into our heads, no matter how random or seemingly insignificant. We then used these ideas to write our own poems.
We went on to read Matt Goodfellow’s poem ‘Ride’, a poem about the freedom a child feels when riding their bike. Using this as inspiration, we wrote our own poems about experiences we have had and enjoyed.
At the end of the unit, we are looking forward to writing and publishing our own poems as part of a class collection.