Poetry Day Ireland 7 May 2015 Lesson Plan for Primary Schools

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1 Poetry Day Ireland 7 May 2015 Lesson Plan for Primary Schools Reading, writing and performing poetry using Louder than a Clap of Thunder by Jack Prelutsky. Lesson prepared by Nell Regan for Poetry Ireland. Suggested Level: Length: Linkage and Integration: Junior Infants - 6 th Class aprox 50 mins Art, Drama There is great scope with this humorous poem, Louder than a Clap of Thunder by Jack Prelutsky (Downloadable 4) to play around with comparisons and exaggerations, through reading and discussion with younger classes and/ or encouraging older children to make up their own poems. The suggested lesson also introduces an easy and effective way to help students write rhyming poems. Rhyming warm up 10 mins Warm up the class for the writing part of the lesson by putting a word on the board and challenging them to see how many rhyming words they can record on rough paper in a set time ( 20 or 30 seconds etc) Do this orally with younger classes. Show them how, if they get stuck they can go through the alphabet to find real rhymes discounting phonetic ones, ( eg rhymes for hat at, bat, cat... fat...hat etc). Move on to words of more than one syllable and get them to find rhymes for part or all of the word. Continue by letting one person at each table pick the word and set the challenge for the others or they can do this in pairs. Reading and responding to Louder than a Clap of Thunder 10 mins Read the poem once to them and then read it together twice you can keep it high energy and keep them focused by pointing randomly to the reader of the next line! Get each table to read a section of four lines. Let everyone pick their favourite line and explain why. Talk about the exaggeration in the poem and get children to suggest examples for Quieter than.../ Brighter than.../ Faster than... poems. Start writing a poem 15 minutes Work on a class/ group poem with younger classes by providing the start and end lines. Examples might include; Quieter than a...(x 4 times) Faster than a... (x 4 times) That s how quiet I can be That s how fast I can run.

2 Slower than a... (x 4 times) that s how slow my baby sister goes. Smaller than a...etc Older classes can be encouraged to generate their own start and end line keeping to same structure as the original. Get them to keep the scenario realistic but their comparisons fantastical. Encourage 5 th and 6 th classes to write their poems for junior classes if you/ they feel the poem is a little young for them. Explain that they don t have to worry about rhyming yet, as you are going to show them an easy way to do it. Some of them will go for it naturally, which is great. Using the Downloadable template 5 (if required, it may not be long enough for more advanced group, just use the strategy in this case) students take a bit of time to write their sentences on the starred Lines A,B,C,D and E, F ie: only writing on the first two lines in every four (decide how many you want them to aim for) Rhyming Lines 10 mins Using the rhyming roughwork box or a piece of paper they then brainstorm a rhyme for the end word of the first Line A (starred). Once they have a few rhymes they will find it easier to come up with a line suggested by a good match and so on for the remaining lines. You can do an example with them and/or model it there is a great element of play to this and no right or wrong answers. So if their first line A is Quieter than a worm underground they can then play with rhymes for underground eg sound.. mound..found..bound... brown or down might even work (tell them that poets cheat with rhymes all the time!) so a possible second line A might be Quieter than a leaf falling down etc which they then fill in. Setting it out like this also means that reluctant writers do not have to rewrite their poem. Tell them not to write the title till the end when they can pick their favourite line or use the first. Reading Poems 5 mins Ask for volunteers to read their poems Linkage and Integration Drama: Children perform their poems in groups using actions and effects. English: A Class Anthology of Poems Art: Illustrate poems Share the children s work on We d be delighted to receive a selection of the poetry created by the children in your class in response to this lesson plan. We will share a selection of the poetry created in schools around the country in the weeks following Poetry Day Ireland on and via Poetry Ireland s social media sites. Please the work to writersinschools@poetryireland.ie or upload a video of children reading their poems to YouTube or Vimeo and send us the link.

3 Downloadable 4 Louder than a clap of thunder, louder than an eagle screams, louder than a dragon blunders, or a dozen football teams, louder than a four alarmer, or a rushing waterfall, louder than a knight in armor jumping from a ten-foot wall. Louder than an earthquake rumbles, louder than a tidal wave, louder than an ogre grumbles as he stumbles through his cave, louder than stampeding cattle, louder than a cannon roars, louder than a giant's rattle, that's how loud my father SNORES Louder Than a Clap of Thunder by Jack Prelutsky

4 Downloadable 5 er Than a By *A er than a, *B er than a, A B er than a *C er than a, *D, C er than a D er than a That s how!

5 Rhymes for the last word of line *A Rhyming Roughwork *B *C *D