Forum

Hi, I'm Sandra MCay, a teacher at Craigton pr. school in Glasgow. Augur Press has just published a book of our kids poems.(one from every child in the school!) 'Poetry Catchers' is available from any online bookstore. The kids got a slot on t.v. radio, local newspaper, and will be reading at Borders and Waterstones in Glasgow. Michael Rosen's book, 'Did I hear you write?' was my inspiration in teaching poetry writing. I used the oral tradition of storytelling to inspire the poems! The results were amazing, and I'm thrilled to have received the seal of approval from the man himself! He asked me to come onto this site and share my experiences with you all. We also have a poetry lending library in our school, which is a great favourite throughout!Also 'Poetry wagons', with books, puppets, etc. in every classroom. I'm delighted to be able to share my ideas, and certainly get some new ones on this website. Kind Regards, Sandra McCay

mccay

Oct 27th, 2008 at 16:58:25 hrs

Dear Michael Rosen: We are a Year 5 Class from Toronto, Canada. We love your poetry! You really inspired our class and enabled us to enter the fabulous world of poetry. Our teacher used your "sticky note" method of teaching poems and we had some great discussions and fun. As part of our poetry unit, we had to do a project on a poet and many people chose you!!!! We also like your website and enjoyed watching you reading your poems on youtube. Some of our favorite poems are:

The Michael Rosen Rap (some of us wrote our own raps)
The News
Conversations with a Two Year Old
The Babysitter
Me and my Brother
Logic
Horrible
Strict (our teacher is not that strict)
Cool Guy and Fool Guy
Fast Food

We also loved some of your new poems like Seagulls, we live at the seaside, and also The Jack and The Beanstalk poems. Many of us wrote poems from the point of view of other fairy tale characters. One person wrote a poem from the point of view of the oven in HANSEL AND GRETEL. We also were very moved by THE SAD BOOK. Our teacher discovered your poetry when she was spending a year in England and she finds your tips for poetry friendly classroom extremely useful and inspiring. We wish you would come and visit Canada! We think you would find some inspiration here in Toronto. We think you are amazing! You really inspire us!!! Love, Sarah, Andrey, Willy, Phoenix, Ahmed, Eva, Ilai, Natasha, Anton K, Anton S. Morag, Arthur, Lisa, Mengting, Audrey, Andalah, Kuhan, Juliaan, Jeremy, and Maia Kareda (our teacher)

RebeccaW

May 27th, 2008 at 14:02:06 hrs

Ever had trouble teaching metaphor poetry...well so have I. Children find it difficult to see the difference between simili's and metaphors and none of the poems seemed to relate well to what children actually knew. So I wrote a poem and used that. Simple format..repetition of the opening line and a noun and verb ending. The poem was about my brother and I used events of his life or aspects of his personality to help me think of the metaphors. for example My brother is a racing car racing round the track. My brother is a cricket ball I hit with a mighty thwack. My brother is a red red rose that smells so very sweet. My brother is a baby fawn wobbling on his feet. I have the whole poem if you would like it and a prompt sheet for children to use if you would like me to send it to you. Children love the idea that their teacher writes a poem and can explain what each line means...once we get going they often realise they know things about my brother from the poem..and they get metaphors. T.Parker

tmdeedee

May 14th, 2008 at 09:42:47 hrs

Michael, Brilliant! Simple and brilliant. In Melbourne, Australia I'm helping on a live performance Mr Bleak and the Etryop, based on the poems of Elizabeth Honey. The fifty minute performance will tour schools all over Victoria. Another way to present poetry, play with language and enter into the worlds of play and imagination. Thanks for inspiration on the video and for flying the poetry flag!

M Shuttleworth

May 14th, 2008 at 09:42:21 hrs

Dear Michael Rosen The video was inspirational and i love the idea of sharing poetry globally! My year 5 enjoyed many aspects of poetry in our last term. I utilised all areas of the language curriculum time and our thirst for poetry was still not satisfied. We laughed at silly poems which th echildren shared, we used milk time to listen to CD's with rhymes, jokes and tongue twisters. The children wrote silly poems about what they would do "If you'd be my friend". The confidence grew as they shared their ideas and because we discussed that poetry can be whatever you want it to be, the children produced some fabulous pieces of writing thet we displayed everywhere. The school rap the children wrote about my teacher was lots of fun. Music, dance and role play were often used to interpret poems or present them to others. Poetry books on display were available as a resource for children who had finished their work and they were often heard giggling to themselves or came along asking if they coudl share a poem with everyone. We have had such fun. I downloaded resources from Instantdisplay and put them into folders, in class, for the children to look at in their free time, i.e wet breaks. We also entertained the school with our Scottish poetry from ITCHYCOO and Mathew Fitt. Good luck everyone. Keep sharing.

peterpan

Jul 30th, 2008 at 10:39:54 hrs