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A POEM A TERM

Writing Poems
& 
The National Literacy Strategy

a guide for teachers:  Year Three

by Roger Stevens

""Poetry should be approached with a sense of fun, 
excitement and discovery."
- Roger Stevens

KEY STAGE TWO

Year Three, Term Three

3. Riddles
(Term Three)

Riddles can encompass many different ideas. Here we will use a riddle also as an
observational poem.

You need a selection of objects that each child can write about, for example:

Each pupil has one object in front of them. He or she must then make a list of phrases using words that describe the object – without mentioning its name.

For example, the list for orange might be:

It is a sphere.
It has a rough surface.
It has a sharp scent.
It rolls across the table.
It is soft.

Read one or two of the children’s first attempts to the class (keeping the writer’s identity a secret) and ask them to guess what the object is. Explain that they are solving a riddle.

Have a selection of traditional riddles ready for the class to solve. For example:

As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives
Every wife had seven sacks
Every sack had seven cats
Every cat had seven kits
Kits, cats, sacks, wives,
How many were going to St Ives?

*

If a man is born in Turkey,
Grows up in Italy,
Comes to America,
And dies in Chicago,
What is he?

*
Name me
and you destroy me

(One Dead Silence)

Discuss which words or phrases make a riddle easy to guess. Ask your children to
rearrange their words so that the hardest is first and the easiest is last.

It has a sharp scent.
It is soft.
It has a rough surface.
It is a sphere.
It rolls across the table.

Read more of the children’s riddles.

This idea may be extended:

a) Add more information. In the case of the orange – it is juicy, I like the taste, it is used to make squash… and so on
b) Imagine you are the object talking. I am heavy. I am soft. I like being squeezed…
c) Use similes. I am like a ball. I am like the sun setting on a hot day
d) Write from memory. Write about a favourite toy or something the child has at home, for example a teddy or a Gameboy
e) Use less obvious objects or abstract nouns, for example a house, a bath, the moon, a shadow, love, friendship, anger and so on

Riddle Haiku
by Roger Stevens

In darkness I hide
The weight of the world upon
My tireless shoulders

When found I am thrown
Into the flaming furnace
And my soul's set free

Continue to next section (Year 4 Term 1)

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