I’m adding poems and rhymes to my YouTube channel pretty well weekly now, offering creative spurs and literacy boosts for children, not to mention handy teacher resources to support a range of topics!

Hi,

 

 

Here’s my latest – a little rhyme to clap, chant and act out, tried out rewardingly in my workshops: 

Sea Monster Alert.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More on my channel: https://www.youtube.com/@katewilliams1493

Enjoy!

Kate

 

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As the blossom comes and the leaf buds start unfurling, it’s uplifting to watch the trees come alive again. And not just watch, but LISTEN!

Here’s ‘Can You Hear The Treetops?’ – my poem for young children about just that, on YouTube: 

https://youtu.be/iMj4f-dByoc

Trees and children – 

Trees are fascinating to draw, describe, imitate, climb, hide behind (or in), study close up or at a great distance, dream about. They’re great for story-writing and poetic fantasies too.

Start a child off with ‘My tree is…’ or ‘What do the trees think?’ or ‘Trees in the breeze go – ‘, or another opening line, after being around trees and talking about them together, and off they’ll go!

Kate

Poetry videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO_w75QsEJYLsH6ickyeI0g

Poetry resources store: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/katewilliams_poetry

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POETRY WORKSHOPS for SPRING TERM!

Visit or Online

Exciting themes, performance options, singing with ukulele, super-interactive!

Bookings through Authors Abroad – click here for details 

Happy New Year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are three friend poems of mine, all published a while back, just to make a change from my nature poems:

Mutual Wish – published in My Gang, Macmillan, 1999:

If only I was Natalie,
I’d have everything going for me.
She’s a brilliant friend and we gossip no end.
I just wish she was me.

She’s quick, sly, slick, knows every trick,
makes things happen, makes life tick.

She’s a joker, a mimic, a rebel, a cynic – 
looks on life as one big gimmick.

She’s wild and daring past all caring.
There’s just no comparing her 
with cautious, mousy me.

But guess what Natalie said to me
yesterday in the dinner queue – 
suddenly, right out of the blue!
She said: ‘I wish I was you’.

Kate Williams

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New Boy – published (twice) in The School Magazine, Australia.

Last week, a new boy came in the door.
He’d gone to a different school before.
He didn’t join in – just sat on the floor,
so we
made some space 
and found him a place
and told him our names
and taught him our games
and clapped when he won
and laughed at his fun
and now he’s not new anymore.

Kate Williams

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Different But the Same   Published in A First Poetry Book, Macmillan 2012.

Jo’s tall.                 I’m small.
She’s vegetarian.   I eat meat.
She’s a swimmer.  I’m an acrobat.
She’s got gerbils.   I’ve got a rat.
She has a sister.     I have a brother.
We’re totally different from each other!

But in a way, we’re just the same.
We always agree which game to play,
and whatever she says, I was going to say,
and everything we say makes us giggle away,
So we’re not really different at all.

Kate Williams

 

 

Attention teachers! 

My poetry workshops are running as ever this term – via screen!

Digital workshops are safe, flexible and cost-effective for schools – plus children love screens and produce fantastic responses, both verbal and written. 

See my Workshops page for feedback: https://poemsforfun.wordpress.com/workshops/

Here are my summer term topic choices:

SEASIDE (and/or sea monsters and tempests)
JUNGLE/RAINFOREST
CREEPY-CRAWLIES
BUSY STREET

Or visually –

To discuss or book, please email me: katewilliams.poetry@gmail.com
or DM me on Twitter @Katypoet

Dates going!!

Kate

Description of a Rabbit

Pompom tail,
marble eyes,
ears that swivel round,
fluffy little legs, elastic-lined
for diving underground.

Bounds around as the sun goes down,
merry as a merry-go-round,
pompom tail flicking up-down-up,
no sound.
That’s your rabbit.

Cute?
Absolutely.
Cuddly?
Could be,
but first you have to grab it.

 
Kate Williams

(Illustration from Pixabay)

Spring is wide open and wonderful to write about! Children can focus on whichever aspects appeal most to them – from pretty blossom to muddy puddles, and from cuddly chicks to slithery tadpoles.

There are the colours to celebrate, the sweet fragrance in the air and the crisp, new shoots of leaf, grass, flower, as well as all the baby animals and the fascinating happenings of cracking eggs and metamorphosing caterpillars. 

Here’s one of the Spring poems started in my online poetry session with KS1 children at St James the Great Primary School, London, recently: 

It’s fun to focus on one animal or aspect sometimes, as in this little squirrels one of mine: 

Here are some more spring poems, including one of mine, incidentally:

http://brian-moses.blogspot.com/2021/03/spring-sunshine-sunshine-likes-to-dance.html

Poetry workshops available, online! Now booking for summer. Details here.

Spring writing sheets (graded) – and LOTS more topics – available here.

Kate
Email: katewilliams.poetry@gmail.com

 

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A Valentine for Caroline

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
oh my darling Clementine!
Bear with me a minute please,
I’m on the other line.

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
what was that you said?
Please ring back another time.
I’m on the phone to Fred.

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
when can we two meet?
Tried SnapChat but that came back…
Sending you a tweet.

Oh my darling, oh my darling!
You’re a perfect rose!
Must get through and speak to you!
Hope this WhatsApp goes.

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
trying Instagram…
That’s no good – won’t send as should.
Says it’s gone to Spam.

Oh my darling, oh my darling,
let our hearts entwine!
Sending texts and emails too…
but all declined!

Oh my darling Clementine!
Oh, will you be mine?
Check my name and ask again,
for an un-decline.

 

Kate Williams

 

Published online in Brian Moses’s Valentine’s Anthology, 2022: brian-moses.blogspot.com . Do visit to enjoy all the other poems in his heart-fluttering but lip-curling collection.

Poems come in all shapes and sizes, and you’re free to add your own design to the pile. Children love this versatility – the fun of trying out new formats and the freedom of inventing their own. 

Here are a few style suggestions to introduce through the term, or year, generally recommended for top infants and juniors (Yrs 2-6):

Action rhymes
Rhyming couplets
Recipe poems
Haiku
Riddles
Acrostics
Spells and Wishes
Shape poems
Cinquains
Kennings

Links to examples of each are given below – poems and poem frames of mine, mostly with teaching tips. (Downloads are mostly for a small fee – below recommended lowest – but you can pick up ideas just from browsing, if that suits you better.)

Action Rhyme example (free):
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/jungle-jungle-simple-4-verse-rhyme-12233258

Rhyming couplet examples:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/-seabed-rhymes-fun-rhyming-couplet-frames-ks2-11892578

Recipe example:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/recipe-for-a-sea-12153962

Haiku example (free):
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/christmas-haiku-winter-wands-12608575

Riddle example:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/what-jungle-creature-am-i-riddle-poem-frame-y3-6-11916160

Acrostic example:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/planet-acrostic-poem-frames-easier-harder-examples-12057197

Spell/wish examples:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/halloween-spooks-and-spells-12588003

Shape poem example, published in The School Magazine:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/poem-albatross-by-this-author-published-12421831

Cinquain example, published in Funny Poems for Christmas, Scholastic, 2005:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/christmas-bauble-poem-12607617

Kenning poem example – on YouTube, and published in The School Magazine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWcn_L3EMMw

More resources:
https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/katewilliams_poetry

(You can also find more examples of the above formats online, of course, and probably in your school poetry anthologies.)

Workshops – in school or online: 
https://poemsforfun.wordpress.com/workshops/

YouTube videos for schools: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO_w75QsEJYLsH6ickyeI0g

Kate 
Email: katewilliams.poetry@gmail.com
Twitter: @Katypoet

 

CHRISTMAS LIGHTS POETRY-WRITING – where to start?

 

Who, in your class, has seen some Christmas lights and can tell you what they were like? Perhaps you have some right there, for the children to describe and respond to. Are they warm and welcoming, or mysterious and fascinating? Are they dazzling and flashing like precious diamonds, or softly shimmering, like enchanting fairy wands? Or what?

 

 

 

 

 

Every child will have their own experiences and associations to draw from, but you, as their creative guide, can help them develop and express their ideas, with inspiring spurs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

COLOURS, MOVEMENTS, FEELINGS and more…

What colours can the lights be? Soft amethyst? Warm magenta? Angel’s halo gold? And how do they shine? Do they glow, glint, twinkle, spin, wink, dance, quiver, or what, in the winter gloom?  Ask how those magical, festive lights make them feel, too: cheerful, excited, happy, hopeful? 

 

RESOURCES –

Here’s a little video I made, offering suggestions to set the ball rolling – adaptable for all ages: 

 

 

 

 

The video refers to some downloadable sheets in my resources catalogue at TES Resources.

 

Search for Christmas Lights, and you’ll find a couple of freebies and others you can see pretty well without paying to download, though prices are all low.

Here’s an example sheet:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Children not celebrating Christmas can still enjoy the wonders of a lit-up room or outdoor scene. Perhaps include other winter lights, such as those of traffic, traffic lights, ‘cat’s eye’ road markings, lighted windows and buildings, trains, aeroplanes, the stars and moon.

 

Help your class construct lines, developing their ideas through imagery and apt word-choices.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FIRST LINE –

Discuss possible opening lines, such as:

Christmas lights can be…
Through my window I saw…
Lighting up the bitter night,…
Dancing in the darkness,…
Twilight twinkles,…

 

Or something quite different!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POEM FORMAT –

 

Rhymes can come later, if at all. Older children can then condense their poems into haiku, where rhymes are really irrelevant, or re-work them as a recipe (e.g. Take a quiver of candlelight and sprinkle with silver sparkles…). Note the alliteration there, adding to the fun. Again, the poems could take the form of riddles – What am I? or What did I see?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or take a Christmas bauble and personify it: what is it thinking, where does it float off to? Does it carry its uplifting powers to someone in need, or melt the cruel frost?

 

Have fun! I know the children will.

 

Kate