Australian Animal Poetry

Now that you have found out what kinds of animals live in Australia, I would like you to think about how you would describe them. The perfect way of doing this is through poetry. Poetry can portray imagery through personification, metaphors, similies and using sentence structures that contain adverbs, verbs and adjectives to give more power to the way you are describing an animal.

Step 1:

What is personification? What are similes? What are metaphors? Watch the video  given at the top of the page and complete the sheets to ensure that you understand what each is.

Step 2:

Think of all the animals that live in Australia and make a list of them. Write the name of one of the animals at the top of the Step 2 sheet at the top of the page and fill in the columns on the sheet with ambitious vocabulary - adverbs, verbs, adjectives. Next, think of sentences that would include metaphors, personification and similes to describe your animal. Examples are given on the sheet provided at the top of the page (Step 2b). Repeat with different Australian animals from your list.

Share your ideas on the blog if you can.

Step 3: 

Poetry comes in all shapes, sizes and form such as Haikus, Cinquains, lyrical, narratives, rhyming, free verse, shape, nonsense - the list goes on. 

I have looked through my poetry books and the internet for examples of poetry that I enjoyed reading and have added them to the top of the page. I would like you to read through the examples of poetry. Then highlight one of the poems to show where they have used metaphors, personification, similes, rhyming patterns, adverbs and adjectives?

Which was your favourite poem and why?

Step 4:

Now it's time to draft your own Australian animal poem. I have included a success criteria to help you at the top of the page. Use the vocabulary you used in step 2 to help you as well as the ideas from the poems that you have read in step 3.

Check your poem carefully for spellings and sense. Remember to include a title and illustrate it.

Step 5:

Email your work to me or one of the other KS2 staff:

lgavan@monyash.derbyshire.sch.uk

jo.gotheridge@winster.derbyshire.sch.uk

laura.mccluskey@winster.derbyshire.sch.uk

marie.fenton@winster.derbyshire.sch.uk