The Magic Box: Poems For Children

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There are plenty of jokes and things to smile about. In Kit’s books you’ll meet a cast of crazy characters, including the dreadful Dave Dirt. And like Dave, the poems are never afraid of a bit of slobber or snot. I have looked at three poems from Kit Wright to explore his style: 'The Sea in the Trees, Watch your French', Heads or Tails Additional tip : Print off nets of cubes and cuboids ( photocopiable card ) and ask children to decorate their magic boxes then assemble them.

You can put anything in the box – a snowman, dragon’s fire, even the first smile of a baby. The box can be made of anything you want – stars, secrets, or dinosaur toes. In the box, you can do anything – even surf! – no matter how strange or impossible it might seem. Whether it’s a poem of laughter or lament, Kit always reads with perfect rhythm and pace. Listen out in ‘Heads or Tails’, for his keen sense of comic timing. The fate of the Supermarket Market Manager; I thought this was a fun description of an overly generous Shop Manager that ends up getting fired because of his good nature, it encompasses very good examples of rhyming prose for students learning the nature of poems. Following this you could get students to write a poem about their own quirky character in a similar style to this example. I have also provided a simple comprehension task which can be used to aid comprehension of the model poem if required. There are many opportunities for incidental learning e.g. grammar and word choice particularly adjectives, powerful verbs, similes and alliteration.The Poem “Sea in the Trees” describes an old man sitting in the shade of a large ash tree, dreaming of the sea. I enjoyed reading this poem because of its strong connection to nature making it very soothing and relaxing. There are some good uses of rhyme with ‘made’ and ‘shade’, and ‘tree’ and ‘sea’. The poem very cleverly links the tree to the sea, harbor and a ship through various literary devices such as imagery and personification. This poem is suitable for KS2, not so much KS1. Children could be asked try and identify any literary devices, they can perform the poem themselves or make their own poem based on the main theme from Wright’s poem. Rhyming words can be analyzed, words that may be unknown could be explored. Children can review the poem saying why they liked it or not. The meaning of the poem: what the poet is trying to do, can be explored.

It leads the learners through each verse and encourages them to appreciate the rich language of the poet. A web link is provided for learners to see and hear the original poet perform the poem. Presentation B provides an opportunity to concentrate on the final 3 verses of the model poem - the ‘impossible things’ verse, what their box is made of and where they will travel in their box. Other witty examples included: It’s Spring, It’s Spring and It’s Winter, It’s Winter, these poems are a bit different than what you expect and would be an excellent fun poem to present in class and get the children to figure out what has gone wrong.

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This book has a vast collection of poems, in a variety of shapes, sizes and styles, rhyming and non-rhyming suitable for different age groups. The book would be an excellent addition to support the subjects across the National Curriculum, particularly to stimulate the children’s imagination and also boost literacy and children’s comprehension of abstract words and settings. Free verse poetry is poetry without many of its usual rigours, which opens up the doors for lots of creative possibilities. That being said, it might feel a bit daunting for some budding writers when they have no form to follow, so we’ve come up with some lovely resources to make free verse poetry at KS2 a bit more fun and accessible!

Kit uses rhythm and rhyme as well as assonance and alliteration to create poems that sound pleasing to the ear. Some use repetition and refrain and sound almost like a song. Some are quite twisting for the tongue!The Magic Box is Wright’s best-known poem for children. It is often read in schools, and Wright himself often does readings of the poem. His poems for children are much beloved, by turns comic, silly, sad, and magical. My favourite poem was “The Magic Box” the book is named after. This is a imaginative abstract that describes a variety of beautiful, strange and wonderful things the narrator would put into their magic box. This would be a very effective at stimulating pupils’ imagination, and would be a good compliment to an English or Art lesson as you could get the children to describe what they would put in their magic box or get them to draw a picture of the magic box and all the wonderful things that were inside. He includes some of his better known pieces e.g. Hot Dog, Great Snakes and Rabbiting On, all of which are fun, well written examples of poetry for young children to engage with.