Colour Poems

A few years back....that's how far I'm behind with my blog!  I have so many things to write about and share.  My aim this year is to catch up!

Anyway, getting children to create colour poems fits so well with feelings and the five senses.

Back then I thought carefully about how I wanted my eager learners to go about doing this.  None of them had written a colour poem before and had just been introduced to using the five senses in their personal recount writing.

I knew I had to get them out there in the school environment and explore their surroundings.

Day 1:
The children picked shapes out of a box then formed small groups.  They used an iPad to go and take photos or video footage of either anything green or anything blue.

Once back in the class children flicked threw their photos and started to explore the five senses.  I thought I could have kept them on the iPads to do this, but  I actually thought it would be quicker and a more powerful discussion face to face.  They used huge pieces of paper to write similes sentences about the colour green or blue using the 5 senses.  These sheets of paper were then stapled to the classroom walls.

Day 2 - 5:
I wanted to take this further.  We talked about other colours and I decided to use our class Pinterest as a tool.  I wanted to extend the children and to get them to really think about what objects, living or non-living were that colour.

Children worked in groups to find images for each colour.  They then picked a colour they really wanted to focus on.  Some children worked in groups and some wanted to work individually.

I created a sheet with the 5 senses that they could use to put down some key ideas.

Once each pair or individual had their sentence they wrote this out and stuck it to the whiteboard. Everyone then gave feedback and we looked at the vocabulary.  For instance, what other words could we use instead of big?

About Two weeks later...
The children then had to think how they'd illustrate their writing.  They used thick paper which had a canvas texture and water colour pencils.

Below is their finished pdf book.  The ePub version has each child or peer reading their sentence.