Thrilled to announce that my upcoming poetry book with Otter-Barry Books
is to be titled:

SQUEAK! SQUAWK! ROAR!
Amazing Animal Poems

PUBLICATION DATE –

THURSDAY, 9TH JANUARY, 2025

Cover picture coming soon!

Hello teachers!

 

I’m all geared up and ready for a summer of poetry writing with your classes!

 

But not just writing – acting, miming, sounding out, stepping outside (weather permitting) to feel, look, listen and breathe in the summer air. We’ll be racking our brains for exciting, expressive words to enrich our poems, not forgetting imagery too, and perhaps a sprinkling of alliterative magic to set our lines flying.

 

Choose your theme for the day from my options:

SEASIDE, UNDER THE SEA (Juniors), JUNGLE, or FLYING HIGH.

 

One theme per day please, except for sea ones which can be mixed, and could also include a Stormy Sea for Juniors!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I provide my own optional writing sheets, illustrated and graded for all ability levels. I also bring a stack of theme-inspiring pictures to blue-tack to your board or wall, and a bag of artefacts to add to the fun.

 

My ukulele is always a highlight for the children, even Year 6s, though it’s just one of many spurs along the way to poetry-crafting.

Everyone is invited to read out, with support as needed, and every effort is celebrated.

 

MORE:

 

Details on my Workshops page (please click here), or visit my page at Authors Abroad (please click here), who handle preliminary enquiries, pricing and bookings.

 

Happy Spring and Summer, all, meanwhile!

 

Kate

 

Hi, thanks for looking in!

Buttercups are dainty and delicate, yet bright and bold, lighting up gardens and meadows from spring to summer.

 

Here’s a little rhyme of mine to celebrate them, with ukulele chords to start and finish, and a merry picture sequence – with thanks to Pixabay contributors:

 

Buttercup Party – for young children and their parents and teachers. Please click for link.

 

 

Lots more lively video-poems for children on my channel too!

Happy spring!

Kate 

 

 

 

Hi, here’s an upbeat but sensitive poem about being part of a complex family.

 

Every family is different. Some are simple, and some come in duplicate, with 2 times everything… or more! Here’s a happy child with two mums and dads:

 

Lucky Me! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More poems brought to life on my YouTube channel:  Kate Williams Poet 

 

Kate

Liam is Lost (click for link)

Hello, 

Any school trips coming up for your kids? Can you remember yours from your own childhood? 

Wherever and whatever the trip, it’s keeping everyone together that’s key, isn’t it… So where’s Liam???

Published in the Macmillan anthology, School Trips, 1998.

U-oh!

                   

(This was one of my very first videos, so please allow for basics!)

Kate

Schools, parents, carers, and anyone looking for ways to enhance their World Book Day celebrations (7th March ’24) – my many 1-minute video-poems can help!

 

 

Pick a topic – castles, dragons, dragonflies, sea monsters, moods and feelings, family, school… all FOR FREE on my YouTube channel, Kate Williams Poet.

 

Recent uploads:

 

‘Castle’ – in which a child asks an adult the age of the castle they’re viewing, and gets some mind-stretching answers!

 

 

 

And here’s one for a restless child or their long-suffering parent/carer/teacher –

 

‘Feeling Fantastic’

 

All are brisk and bright, poetic yet accessible, fun and catchy, with picture sequences and expressive reading, and often with a punchy beat running through or other musical input.

 

Many of the poems featured have been published in anthologies or arts magazines for children; all are by me.

 

Or something crazy for your kids? Here’s ‘Half Past Thursday’.

 

 

Latest:

 

‘City Centre Saturday’ – a bustly, fast-moving stream of rhyming couplets describing a busy high street – busy until the sun goes down and people head back home.

 

Watch your children evolve into poetry-lovers without even noticing, and creating their own, unique takes on these poems and their themes, too!

 

Kate

 

 

 

 

Hi, here’s my Featured Resource No. 10 –

Spring Animals Writing Sheet Stack, KS1 + EY –

 

huge value for £3.80 download price, with no fewer than 11 writing/colouring sheets! (Click for link.) 

 

 

This attractively illustrated series of spring writing sheets features young bunnies, frogs, robins, squirrels, butterflies, ladybirds and more, with lots of colouring opportunities.

Lots of joyful activity for Early Years to Year 2, as you’ll see on the preview page.

 

 

More featured resources soon. Pausing for a busy week or so. Meanwhile, you can find all the previous ones in my February Archives.

Kate

It’s FIRE-UP-FRIDAY –

my weekly post offering tips and ideas for firing up your young poets!

 

This week’s idea:

 

Riddle Rhymes!

 

 

With the exciting aim of puzzling your audience, children forget that they’re writing poetry. Ok, it may be the simplest of rhymes, or simply a description written in short lines like a poem, but it’ll still be a step into that often feared literary form. 

Here are a few types of riddle to try with your class:

Identity:

A What/Who am I? poem: this could involve a description of the unidentified item, animal, character or person through several (rhyming?) verses.

A hidden word to find:

this could require the reader to join up the initials of the first word on each line, as in an acrostic, or of the last word, or all the initials in the last line, perhaps.

Word search challenge:

Most children will be familiar with word searches, but to make your own can be very tricky. Show the children how to write the secret word in their chosen direction, then to conceal it by using its letters to make other words going in different directions. They can then announce their word at the start and challenge others to find it.  While a word search creation is not poetry, it uses similar skills in choosing and arranging words flexibly for a purpose.  

Missing link:

Older children will enjoy joining words by their shared end-start letters, as in ‘pearladybird’ (pearl ladybird). They can then add in one word that doesn’t share a letter with the next, therefore breaking the chain. Readers will have the fun task of spotting it.

RIDDLE ANSWERS can be written in tiny letters, upside down, hidden in a picture, or written on the reverse page – adding in extra enjoyment for writer and reader alike.

 

Have fun!

Kate

Hi, here’s my Featured Resource No. 9 – a beautiful one – from my TES Resources store:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Butterfly Picture-Writing – with Guide sheet, £2.00 to download.

 

 

The picture on the sheet (not the one above) has eleven slots for words and phrases, and the guide sheet offers a list of suggestions for describing words and similes – handy for teachers to glance at while prompting children.

 

You can take a look at the previews of both before deciding whether to download.

 

More tomorrow, and daily! See my February Archives on this site for more featured resources, or browse the hundreds of poetry, literacy and colouring sheets at my store (inc. freebies!).

 

Kate

Reading Game, Year 1 – Sort out the Tea Table, £2.00 to download. Click for link.

 

 

 

 

Hi, here is my 8th featured resource from my TES store, with more coming daily!

 

 

This one is not for poetry but for reading and general literacy. It’s a funny game involving a table spread with labelled food. But some of the platefuls are not actually food at all – which ones? Could ‘Muddy boot’ be one? And ‘Paper’ another? The children have the fun task of identifying those rogue items and crossing them out.

 

Please note – the image does not show the sheet offered in the resource, which offers a picture to write on.

 

 

This little game is great for developing word recognition and confidence, and bringing meaning to the written language for young children.

LOTS more resources to browse at my TES store, including freebies.

 

More tomorrow!

Kate