National Poetry Day 2022
Shipton Bellinger took part in National Poetry Day on Thursday 6th October. We spent the day immersing ourselves in words, exploring language, reading poetry by famous authors and writing our own poetry. Key Stage 2 also took part in a live lesson hosted by the children's poet laureate, Joseph Coelho.
Then on Friday 7th October, we hosted a Poetry Slam and invited the whole school to come and watch us perform our poetry. It was wonderful to hear the children's excitement for poetry and to watch their fantastic performances.
Have a look at the sections below for more information about what we got up to on Poetry Day.
Early Years
We were lucky enough to spend the day with our Yr 6 'Buddies'! We joined them in going round the school creating a soundscape, we sat quietly and listened to see what we could hear. After this we gave rhyming a go, the children were able to come up with lots of rhyming words such as "hat and mat", "toad and load" and "moon and spoon"! In the afternoon our Buddies came back down to see us and to make some word birds, we used these to help us say a poem about birds called 'If I were a Bird' by Jackie Silberg.
Year 1
Hedgehogs went out on an 'autumn sensory' walk around our school grounds today. We used our science learning about our senses to think about what we could hear, see, feel & smell (not taste!) around us, thinking particularly about the seasonal changes we have been exploring this term. We enjoyed feeling the cool dew on the grass and hearing the squelching noise our shoes made as we walked across the field! We look for colours and explored textures of different leaves. We worked collaboratively as a class when we got back inside, on a shared poem that we wrote and presented together. Lovely vocabulary Hedgehogs, you also did a great job presenting your beautiful poem to the whole school.
Year 2
We had an absolutely fantastic time enjoying National Poetry day. We wanted to embrace the outdoors, so went outside to look for signs of autumn. We could smell autumn in the air! We could certainly see lots of signs of autumn, the leaves were changing colour, there were conkers on the ground and there was a definite chill in the air. Back in the classroom we collected all of our ideas together and each wrote an autumn poem.
Year 3
There were many exciting events that took place in our classrooms this week, the most important one being Poetry Day! We spent the entire day exploring rich poetry all about nature and our environment, discussed what makes a successful poem and even participated in the BBC live lesson dedicated to poetry day. After that, we went on a vocabulary hunt around the school grounds in search for words that could be used in our own poems that we would be writing in the afternoon. In fits of giggles, we watched how poetry should be performed with Micheal Rosen, we particularly loved 'Chocolate cake'!
A very big well done to Kai, Rose, Isabella, Lily, Isabelle-Mae and Jim-Bob who were super brave and performed their own poems in front of the whole school!
Year 4
We had a fantastic day celebrating poetry and creating our own. We began by solving riddles and playing ping pong poetry which was great fun! We then looked at Kennings poetry and made some of our own based on family members. As the theme this year was 'The Environment', we considered our school environment and changes that happen during Autumn. We spent time outside in our forest area and thought about the senses. After gathering our ideas, we created Rainbow poems using similes.
Year 5
Year 5 spent the day up in space considering our cosmic environment!
We began in the morning with some fun games to help us play with language and grammar. We then read the poem 'Roll Up Roll Up' which introduced us to the idea that we are all parts of space - that each molecule that makes up our bodies was once a molecule that made up shooting stars, galaxies and far away planets. The poems we then wrote reflected this idea.
Year 6
Year 6 took the opportunity that poetry day presented to work with our amazing Year R buddies! After reading through some poems natures, specifically bird inspired by nature, we headed out with our Year R friends to create 'soundscapes' in different areas of our school. Without exception, the Year 6 children were amazing role models to our Year Rs, sensitively encouraging and guiding them, whilst at the same time being actively conscious of the sounds, smells and sights within outdoor environment of our school - something that we would need when writing our own poetry that afternoon.
After extending our understanding of poetic devices and unpicking some impressive poetry, we set about writing our own poetry about the murmurations of starlings (a site that we are lucky to say not unusual in Shipton!). I could not have been prouder of the enthusiasm the children showed for creating their own poems and how thoughtful they were about the environment around us.
On Friday we were lucky enough to be able to perform a sample of our work to the school which closed out a wonderful celebration of poetry at Shipton.
