A national poetry recital competition has launched a set of interactive resources for primary school children and their teachers.

The organisers of the Poetry By Heart competition, aimed at 14- to 18-year-olds, has published a set of 65 poems to support the teaching of poetry to younger children. 

The poems have been chosen by Morag Styles, retired professor of children’s poetry at the University of Cambridge and trustee of the Poetry Archive. Each one is accompanied by a suggested activity. 

The site also offers children the chance to hear recordings of some of the poems and to record their own versions. 

The grand final of the competion, which is now in its fourth year, will be held in March 2016 for students in secondary schools and colleges. 

Julie Blake, co-director of Poetry By Heart, said: “In the last couple of years many teachers have asked us if we could develop some resources for younger children and we are delighted to have done that now.

“The Poetry By Heart resource for primary school children is designed to help pupils and teachers find poems they love, and enjoy them together through reading aloud and learning them by heart. It encourages playful discovery and serious fun.”

Here are the poems selected: 

1. Miss Lucy Had a Baby by Anon
2. The North Wind Doth Blow by Anon
3. Mosquito one by Anon
4. The Tyger by William Blake
5. Extract from The Pied Piper by William Browning
6. The Sleepy Giant by Charles E Carryl
7. The Mock Turtle’s Song by Lewis Carroll
8. Little Trotty Wagtail by John Clare
9. The Witch by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
10. Answer to a Child’s Question by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
11. The Months of the Year by Sara Coleridge
12. A Bird Came Down the Walk by Emily Dickenson
13. Extract from The Peacock at Home by Catherine Ann Dorset
14. Wynken, Blynken and Nod by Eugene Field
15. Casabianca by Felicia Hemans
16. The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howitt
17. There Was a Naughty Boy by John Keats
18. The Way Through the Woods by Rudyard Kipling
19. The Quangle Wangle’s Hat by Edward Lear
20. Hiawatha: Fishing by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
21. Child’s Song in Spring by Edith Nesbit
22. Eletelephony by Laura Richards
23. What is Pink? by Christina Rossetti
24. Ye spotted snakes by William Shakespeare
25. My Cat Jeffrey by Christopher Smart
26. The Cataract of Lodore by Robert Southey
27. Escape at Bedtime by Robert Louis Stevenson
28. The Owl by Alfred Tennyson
29. Written in March by William Wordsworth
30. The Song of Wandering Aengus by WB Yeats
31. Tarantella by Hilaire Belloc
32. Tell me, tell me, Sarah Jane by Charles Causley
33. On a Night of Snow by Elizabeth Coatsworth
34. Some One by Walter de la Mare
35. It Was Long Ago by Eleanor Farjeon
36. The Door by Miroslav Holub
37. Song For a Banjo Dance by Langston Hughes
38. Spell of the Air by Elizabeth Jennings
39. Cargoes by John Masefield
40. Jamaica Market by Agnes Maxwell-Hall
41. Nothingmas Day by Adrian Mitchell
42. Hyena by Edwin Morgan
43. The People Upstairs by Ogden Nash
44. The Ceremonial Band by James Reeves
45. Sick by Shel Silverstein
46. Fisherman Chant by John Agard
47. Isn’t My Name Magical by James Berry
48. Granny Is by Valerie Bloom
49. Pirate Pete by James Carter
50. Extinct by Mandy Coe
51. How to Cut a Pomegranate by Imtiaz Dharker
52. If You Were a Carrot by Berlie Doherty
53. Time Transfixed by Carol Ann Duffy
54. House of Air by Philip Gross
55. Please Do Not Feed the Animals by Robert Hull
56. Double Trouble by Jackie Kay
57. Cinema Poem by Roger McGough
58. Lone Dog by Irene McLeod
59. Instructions for Growing Poetry by Tony Mitton
60. Lament of an Arawak Child by Pamela Mordecai
61. Wha Me Mudder Do by Grace Nichols
62. Rules by Brian Patten
63. The Language of Cat by Rachel Rooney
64. My Dad, Your Dad by Kit Wright
65. Vegan Delight by Benjamin Zephaniah

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