Teaching And Home Schooling Ideas

Have you had some snow and managed to build a snowman? Finally we have had enough snow to build Bob the Snowman! You could get the children to draw a snowman and write an acrostic poem about the snowman. An acrostic poem is when you use the initial letter from the word to start the sentences.  Snowman Steve stands slightly sloping!  Nose pointing towards the house.  On the grass he stands majestically.  With eyes searching for the warm enemy!  Melting fast in the sun.  Away he goes.  Not back until it snows again.  If you have named your snowman you could use the name of your snowman for the poem. Think about what your snowman looks like - tall, short, wide, smiling, what is your snowman wearing, how have you made the face, arms, buttons etc think about snowy words - icy, melts, white, frosty, frozen, icicles, snow crystals, snow flakes, thaws, powdery snow, wet....  Have fun. 

School suggested we could write a poem about this time in lockdown. We chatted about this and Thomas came up with a couple of sentences. I then asked a few questions as prompts. First thoughts when you heard school was closing. How did you feel? What do you miss most about normal life? What don't you miss? How long in lockdown so far? How do you feel now? What have been the highlights? What's difficult about lockdown? What have you learnt about yourself? How has life changed? How has your family reacted? What will you remember the most? We used the answers to the questions to come up with some sentences for a poem. I wrote each sentence on a strip of paper in different coloured felt tips. We could then reorder the sentences. Another day we typed up the poem. The process took 3 days. Thomas suggested an acrostic poem called isolation where the letters of the word isolation start the sentences but the sentences we came up with didn't fit.