We have started a bit of a poetry topic. It is one of those areas that I feel I have neglected a bit (I think the only poems we have done are Acrostic poems). We do lots of other literature, actually a ridiculous amount because my daughter loves reading and then dissecting the characters and events of a good book but we have never really gotten into poetry. So I decided we just needed to tackle poetry, from reading, understanding, writing it ourselves and even trying our hand at performing it.

One of the resources that I am using is my Understanding English: Poetry: KS2 English Study Book, Ages 7-11. I have used almost all of the Understanding English workbooks with my kids and we just like them. The series seems to suit us, we like the layout and the way the books progress through the topics. We don’t always do page for page in the exact order of the book but I still like the way they start their topics and then progress through them.

We also really like the page layouts, the small explanation at the top of the page is always concise and spot on in terms of explaining a concept. And then there are a few activities on each page and they are not “write an entire page type activity”, they are more “write a sentence or phrase” which suits my youngest (especially with the Poetry as he far prefers Non-fiction writing in any sort of figurative format). But I am determined to cover the basics with him and then do a bit more detail with my oldest and I am hoping I might get her writing a few of her own poems.

So what is inside the Understanding English: Poetry: KS2 English Study Book, Ages 7-11

• Sound, shape and pattern
• Learning and performing poems
• Reading poems aloud
• Writing poems to perform
• Sound effects
• Poetic language
• Similes and metaphors
• Personification
• Understanding a poem
• Inferring idea and themes
• Layers of meaning
• Discussing and writing about poems
• Poems on a theme
• Poems in different forms
• Haiku
• Shape poems
• Writing shape poems
• Writing in free verse

I realize poetry can be quite a broad topic and there are lots of things that you could include but I feel like this workbook covers quite a lot and I feel like it covers the correct poetry items for my youngest (he would be Year 5 if he attended school). Plus there are some pages in here that I am planning on extending and using with my oldest.

And so far, my son has admitted that some poetry can be fun – this is him having a go at one of the suggested activities from the workbook – performing one of the poems.

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Schofield & Sims do sometimes send us products to review and this poetry book is one of the products that they have sent us. How we use the books, when we use the books and what we write about them is completely up to us.