What the lesson is about
This is a literacy lesson aimed at key stage 1 pupils relating to the “Silly Stuff” poetry unit.
Aims: pupils will:
- read and respond to silly poems that play with language;
- understand that we can change poems such as nursery rhymes to make them funny;
- be able to write their own silly poems or rhymes as a way of exploring language.
Getting started
Explain that you will be asking the children to write their own nursery rhymes, by using rhyming words in their poems. Ask pupils to create their own rhyming patterns in pairs: how many rhymes can they think of for “chair”, for example?
Explain that you are going to look at nursery rhymes that have gone wrong.
Read out a nursery rhyme and ask the children how it could be changed. Ask them to think of other nursery rhymes. How could they be changed to make them funny?
Read out the rhyme:
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
She had so many children she didn’t know what to do.
She gave them some broth without any bread,
Then scolded them soundly and sent them to bed.
Ask the children where else the woman could live. How might the rhyme continue? Read out a changed version:
There was an old woman who lived in a hole,
It was so dark in her house that she went blind like a mole.
She got some thick glasses to help her to see,
But they didn’t work as she stood on a bee.
Ask the children what else could rhyme with hole. Discuss some possible ideas for how the rhyme could continue.
Taking it further
Ask the children to work on different nursery rhymes, changing words to make them funny. Ask them to look for the rhyming words and match them with one of their own, or they can change the last line or a word or phrase in the poem. Ask them to think about rhythm as well as rhyme.
Get pupils to share their new rhymes with the rest of the class. Ask the class to sing the new versions. Which ones did they think were particularly funny? Which ones rhymed well? Which ones had good rhythm?
Where to find it
The lesson plan, plus examples of nursery rhymes to use, was uploaded by KitKaty and can be found at www.tes.co.uksilly-stuff-poetry.
