PDF featuring original poems and activity ideas, plus Powerpoint featuring the poems to read aloud in class
KS2
Years 3-6
Amidst the Christmas celebrations, use these Christmas poems KS2 resources to reflect on the contrast between festive excess and continuing crises in other countries.
Use these poems as an emotive way to explore these differences and have children write their own haikus in the same way.
Introducing the topic
Poetry lends itself to Christmas. All schools celebrate the season one way or another with parties, shows, performances and songs.
Christmas poems should be performed in school assemblies or on special occasions, such as Christmas shows or performances. You might choose to display poems:
- on star shapes
- on cut out shapes of Christmas trees
- beside tissue paper church window patterns
Pie Corbett wrote the poem Scarecrow Christmas (included in this download) many years ago when a friend of his had been to Ethiopia during a famine and returned with photographs showing the terrible effects.
The poem could be set to simple music, sung or performed as a rap. If you turn it into a song then the children might find it helpful to write some sort of rhythmic chorus.
Ask the children to discuss the poem and feed back their ideas about what it means. What is the poet trying to say about Christmas time? How does the poem work?
Christmas poems KS2 resource contains:
- PDF resource
- Accompanying PowerPoint slides
More poetry resources
Inspire KS2 pupils to be creative and express themselves with this exclusive collection of Pie Corbett poetry resources.
Pie Corbett is an English educational trainer, writer, author and poet who has written over 200 books. He is also known for promoting creative approaches in the classroom and has experience as a teacher, headteacher and Ofsted inspector. Follow him on Twitter at @PieCorbett. Browse more Christmas activities.
