Thursday 7th October was National Poetry Day. It is an annual mass celebration of poetry that encourages all to enjoy, discover and share poetry. The theme for this year was ‘choice’. To celebrate their creative freedom, Year 6 embraced the liberty of poetic license and the opportunity it offers, to choose and manipulate words, use punctuation and allow their creativity to flow as they devised poems relating to their set text, The Legend of Podkin One Ear.

They had freedom of expression to present or perform their poems in their own unique way – a rap song, about baby bunny Pook, was poetry in motion! The carefully selected figurative language created mood, atmosphere and collaboration between the poets and they really did rise to the challenge of writing and reading poetry!

The Year 6 children working from home celebrated National Poetry Day by looking at a variety of poetry genres and forms, including nonsense poetry, rhyming poetry and shape poetry.  We found that writing poetry is a conundrum! How can writing less be more challenging than writing more? When is a poem good enough and what is author satisfaction? They were just some of the HOT (Higher Order Thinking) questions that we explored in our discussion. In recognition of National Poetry Day, the children were then challenged to choose a poetry style and generate their own, individual creations.