This week’s theme:
Adventures in Poetry & Rhymes
This week’s colouring in sheet:
Download and print this week’s colouring sheet here.
Fact of the week:
A limerick is a five-line verse where the first, second and fifth line rhyme, while the third and fourth lines share a different rhyme.
Activities for the week…
Activity 1
Learn some amazing limericks & follow the actions in these videos by Lisa –
Can you come up with any of your own where the first, second and fifth line rhyme, while the third and fourth lines share a different rhyme
Activity 2
Writer Michael Rosen set an online poetry challenge that we can do too.
Think of a character in the plot of a film, book, TV show. Write a poem as if you were that character in that film/book/TV show. In the poem, write about what you’re thinking, seeing, hearing, experiencing.
For example, could you write a poem as if you were Captain Jack Sparrow on the galleon in Pirates of the Caribbean? Or as if you were Harry Potter on your first day at Hogwarts? Or as if you were Roy Cropper working a shift at Roy’s Rolls on Coronation Street?
Activity 3
Read, or have somebody read to you the poem ‘The Jabberwocky’ by Lewis Carrol.
Act it out, come up with actions, practice saying the words or making noises such as ‘snicker-snack’. Try making up some of your own nonsense words.
Draw what you think ‘slithy toves’, a ‘Jubjub bird’, ‘The frumious Bandersnatch’, a ‘vorpal sword’, the ‘Tumtum tree’ and indeed ‘The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame’ might look like, sound like, feel like and smell like.
Activity 4
A lot of poems Rhyme. Rhyming is where words sound the same; like cat, mat, fat, drat, hat.
Take a look at, and hear the writer, Spike Milligan read ‘On The Ning Nang Nong’.
Which are the rhyming words? What other words could you make rhyme with ‘Ning’, ‘Nang’, or ‘Nong’? Replace your words into the poem and make up your own nonsense rhyming poem.
Can you think of a word that rhymes with purple? If not, make up some rhyming words like Spike Milligan would! Write your new words out and decorate them. Create a glossary of what your made-up words might actually mean. Say the words out loud – say them in different tones, with different emotion; might this affect what you think the words mean?
Come up with actions for the different things mentioned in another of Spike Milligan’s rhyming poems, ‘The Land of The Bumbly Boo’ that you can hear him read here. Draw some cats wearing trousers and hats, and anything else from the poem!
Activity 5
William Blake’s poem ‘The Tyger’ starts:
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Come up with actions for these 4 lines.
The fiery/burning imagery used throughout the poem conjures the tiger’s aura of danger – Prowl like a tiger. Growl like an angry tiger. Practice rolling your r’s by saying (like Tony the Tiger) ‘They’re Grrrreat!
Can you move and prowl like a hunting tiger, and mime catching your meal with claws or jaws? Draw and design lots of your own food items; cut them out and see how many can you catch in your tiger claws or jaws if you throw them into the air.
Create an art work of a tiger’s face using symmetry to make both sides of the face, and their stripes, match.
Tangerine Dream made the poem’s words into a song. Can you make your own percussion or dance accompaniment to it?
Activity 6
Rhythm poetry describes poems that move to a beat.
Read aloud, or ask somebody to read to you ‘Humble Crumble’ by Ian McMillan.
Create body percussion (claps, taps, snaps) to the beats of the poem. Try saying the poem faster and slower but keep to the same beat – does the percussion rhythm change? Move your body to the rhythm of the poem recited quickly and slowly; create body shapes, patterns and movements in time to it.
Have a play with rhythm. Listen to different bpms on a Metronome app – can you keep to the rhythm and tap/clap/snap in time? Change the pace of the metronome (faster and slower) can you keep up with the metronome as it changes pace? Can you say the syllables of your name in time with the metronome at different paces?
Activity 7
At the beginning of Alice Walker’s poem, ‘A Picture Story For The Curious’ (a poem all about growing up and getting older), the writer states ‘you supply the pictures!’ Can you draw pictures or draw pictures with your body shapes to accompany any of the words in her poem?
Activity 8
Make a sound scape for the poem ‘The Sound Collector’ by Roger McGough. Can you create a sound for every line of the poem, and collect the sounds into a big bag like the robber who steals them all? Create a robber’s mask to wear as you act out creeping round to steal the sounds.
Try to create the silence heard at the end of the poem – time how long you can keep silent for.
Activity 9
Try some military-style chanting. Use your rhyming skills to fill in some of these blanks, while marching in time and saluting. Act as the sergeant major and to call everybody to ‘Attention!’
I don’t know, but I’ve been told
I don’t know, but I’ve been told
(3 syllable word) are mighty bold! (e.g. “News Readers”)
(3 syllable word) are mighty bold!
Sound off. One, two
Sound off. Three, four
Out of (3 syllable word) we grew (e.g. “Purple Patch”)
Out of (3 syllable word) we grew
We’re a rough and ready crew
We’re a rough and ready crew
Sound off. One, two
Sound off. Three, four
I don’t know, but I’ve been told
I don’t know, but I’ve been told
(3 syllable word) is good as gold (e.g. “Santa Claus”)
(3 syllable word) is good as gold
Sound off. One, two
Sound off. Three, four
(3 syllable word) is really grand (e.g. “Exercise”)
(3 syllable word) is really grand
Marching in the mud and sand
Marching in the mud and sand
Why not take a photo of any of the activities you’ve tried this week and share it with us? You can share it on our Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or send it to melanie@purplepatcharts.org and we’ll put it online for you!