Suitability: Key Stage Two
Living Verse is a poetry project for Primary Schools designed to encourage children to read, appreciate and write verse. A range of nonsense, comic and serious poems are used. The performance may contain works by Edward Lear, A.A. Milne, W.H. Auden and Robert Browning as well as more contemporary verse. Since the content is varied to suit the age of the audience, Living Verse is suitable for all primary school children from Reception to Year Six. The performance employs narrative craft as well as dramatic skills, puppets and props to secure the audience’s appreciation and interest.
Each performance will be for two classes (approximately 60 children) and is followed by two workshops, in which the children will create their own poems, or a craft-based workshop, depending on the age of the classes involved. The workshop will aim to make children appreciate that they can produce imaginative verse of their own, and to inspire them to want to develop their poetry-writing skills. The project is geared to specific educational objectives, and will encourage follow up work, suggestions for which will be given in the teachers notes.