I really enjoy writing verse, even though it can be fiendishly difficult. I used to memorise poems as a child and it means a lot to me when parents tell me their child can recite one of my books. English activities - understanding the difference between a poem and a story and the meaning of the poems.

Encouraging children to act out stories, plays – and poems – has been a key element in Julia Donaldson’s work as Children’s Laureate. In this new anthology, published in her final few weeks in the role, she has collected poems which are ideal for performing. Featuring poems by poets ranging from Michael Rosen, John Agard and Allan Ahlberg, to T S Eliot, W H Auden and Eleanor Farjeon - and of course, Donaldson herself - this anthology is a real treat. Primary aged children will love the chance to act out this delightful range of poems, which includes fun tongue-twisters and action rhymes. Beautifully presented, it is accompanied by traditional lino cut illustrations by Clare Melinsky who appropriately enough originally trained as a theatre designer. A gorgeous book for the classroom - or for reading and sharing at home. Before Malcolm and I had our three sons we used to go busking together and I would write special songs for each country; the best one was in Italian about pasta. From The Works: Every Poem You Will Ever Need at School chosen by Paul Cookson. ‘Uses’ by Rachel RooneyThis fab Performance Poetry PowerPoint is the perfect way to introduce it to your class and bring your students' poetry to life. I have a personal feeling that a handful of the poems were a little older. Not so much in the way that it would be harder for children to grasp or immerse themselves in (I'm all for sharing classics and spending the time to unravel and ask questions about them), but leaning more towards it being debatable if they quite have a place in the classroom anymore. For example, "The Wraggle Taggle Gipsies" and "From a Railway Carriage". I felt they may have been put in more as a nostalgia moment for Julia Donaldson rather than their suitability. There are poems with non speaking rolls, poems with single lines, and poems with full paragraphs to give out. From The Same Inside: Poems about empathy and friendship by Liz Brownlee, Roger Stevens and Matt Goodfellow. The above video may be from a third-party source. We accept no responsibility for any videos from third-party sources. Please let us know if the video is no longer working.

Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts, Former Children’s Laureate, Michael Rosen, gathers together the best children’s poetry from Agard to Zephaniah in thiscollection. From Grace Nichol's poem about her Caribbean Gran visiting England to Rosen's own hilarious account of his Dad's intolerance to 'The Noise', There are poems to entertain everyone. A brilliant book for dipping iin…Poems to Perform: A Classic Collection Chosen by the Children's Laureate by Julia Donaldson is has a vibrant collection of poems that are perfect to be performed by two or more voices! Julia Donaldson chose poems where children could perform them. The poems range from classics by Edward Lear, W H Auden, and Eleanor Farjeon, to contemporary work by Michael Rosen, John Agard, and Clare Bevan.

Children can practise with the included text cards and performance poetry examples and then progress to reading full poems with the lovely Sunflower Poetry Booklet. Taking small steps like this will prevent children from becoming overwhelmed and will enable them to see improvement over time. Opportunities for PSHE are also here i.e. what can precipitate confrontation between family members and how can that be resolved?The poems you choose can encourage wordplay. That stimulates your child to see words and the way they are used in a different fashion. As well as just learning for the sheer joy and enjoyment it brings, performance poems can have additional and powerful fringe benefits. They can, for example, be a great way to inspire children to write their own verses or new poems, they can be an introduction to new and exciting vocabulary and could also be the catalyst that sparks an exciting and informative debate on contentious issues relevant in the KS1 and 2 classrooms. They can also ultimately be the inspiration for all different genres of writing including plays, interviews, diary entries, stories and much much more. Find out what prior knowledge and experience they have of poems being performed: Have they performed any poems themselves before? Or seen anyone else performing poetry? What was it like to watch or perform? How did it make you feel? Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed, Some poems lend themselves to movement. A choral speaking performance might involve some gesture or other moves. Or, as an exercise, a group could work on a mimed version, or a set of freeze frames.

The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings, I particularly enjoyed the poem ‘Walking the Dog’. I thought this poem may be excellent for use in a classroom as the subject matter, dogs, is something that interests many children, but also because of the many poetic features it includes, such as repetition, stanzas, and rhyme. These features make this book great to read aloud and perform but would also be appropriate for literacy lessons, to expose children to features of a poem. I also think the pictures make it appropriate for all ages. As well as analysing the poem, ‘Walking the Dog’ could be used as a template for early poetry writing, inspiring children to write their own poem about something that interests them.Intentionally, I have not included the whole of the poems in this blog as some of them are fairly long. The whole versions are all easily found for free online. The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the contour of their shape downwards, All this is accompanied by some lovely Twinkl illustrations that really bring the teaching to life. This is great for engaging all your students, as fun and colourful characters can help engage more visual learners. I am a big fan of poetry so am very excited to see children's poetry taking a larger role in my second year of studies. He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,