Lesson video

Hi, everyone.

My name's Mrs. Tweedy.

I'm so excited to be here teaching you today's poetry lesson.

You'll need a quiet space to work, a pencil and paper to write on, and someone, or the screen to talk to.

If you're ready, I'm ready.

Let's get started.

The outcome for today's lesson is, "I can give a personal response to the poem "and read it aloud." Today's poem is "Home Time" by Rachel Rooney.

The key words for today's lesson are here.

The first is personification.

Your Turn.

Great.

Personification is a way of describing a non-living thing as if it acts or feels like a human.

The second key word is "perspective." Great job.

A perspective is the point of view or position from which the poet writes.

We're going to be looking at these words in lots of detail throughout today's lesson.

The first part of today's lesson, will be introducing ourselves to the poem, "Home Time," and Poet, Rachel Rooney.

The second part of our lesson will be exploring the poem in more detail.

Let's start with meeting Rachel Rooney.

Rachel Rooney was born in London.

And you can see London here on the map, the capital city of England.

She was part of a large family of six children.

She became a teacher, and spent many years teaching children with special needs.

When she was a child, Rachel loved poetry, and wrote lots of poems, but she never showed them to anyone, and she stopped when she was in her teens.

Hmm.

I wonder if any of you have a special passion that you love doing right now, as you are a child.

Many years later, Rachel rediscovered her love of poetry.

That means she found her love of poetry again, and she started writing poetry again.

Time for a check.

Select the statements that are true out of A, B, C, and D.

Pause the video now, whilst you select the true statements.

Welcome back.

How did you get on? These B&D statements are the correct true ones.

Rachel Rooney was born in London, and Rachel Rooney worked as a teacher.

Great job.

Rachel Rooney is known for writing imaginative poetry for children.

That word "imaginative" is highlighted in purple.

Let's explore it further.

Imaginative means having the ability to create vivid, or bright mental images.

That means pictures in our mind, or concepts, that means ideas that may not really exist.

If you are imaginative, you can create worlds, you can create atmospheres, you can draw people in to your worlds of pictures.

Among Rachel's poems, you will find riddles, puzzles, strange stories, funny ideas, and even characters from fairytales.

Wow, they sound so exciting.

In this lesson, we'll be reading and responding to one of her poems, "Home Time." Now, before we read the poem, and I know you're so excited to get to it, I want you to think about the title.

What does the title, "Home Time" make you think of and expect from the poem? What words or images spring into your mind? Pause the video now as you discuss with somebody near you.

Welcome back.

John says, "It makes me think the poem "is going to be about the end of the day "at school when it is time to go home.

I completely agree with John.

"Home Time" always makes me think about the end of the school day.

How about this one? "I think the humour might come from "the children rushing to get ready to go home.

"It may be similar to the 'Morning Rush' poem "by John Foster." Oh, I like this idea, linking together one poem with another one that you might have studied before.

I want you to think now, just by yourself in your head, are these two ideas positive or negative images that are coming to their minds? Great thinking.

Now I will read the poem, "Home Time" by Rachel Rooney to you.

"It's five past three.

"Sixty-Four eyes look at me.

"No.

Sixty-two.

"Not Matthew.

He hasn't learned to read my face." "He's got digital.

A disgrace! "I reach to ten.

"The school bell sounds, and then, relief.

"No more glueing , sticking.

"Just me and the teacher, ticking, ticking, ticking." Now, it's your turn to read "Home Time." Read it out loud, and sound out any words you are unsure of to help you.

Once you've read the poem, we will discuss our initial responses to it.

Hmm.

Initial.

This is an adjective, a describing word.

It means at the beginning, or first.

That means that we'll be discussing your first responses to this poem, "Home Time" after you've had a go at reading it.

You might talk about whether or not you liked the poem and why, and if it made you think about anything in particular.

Pause the video now whilst you take the time to read "Home Time." Welcome back.

Now I'm going to give my initial response to the poem.

I'm thinking about these questions.

What did I like about the poem? And do I have any questions about it? Well, I loved reading the poem, "Home Time." I liked how the poem was written from the perspective of the classroom clock.

And you'll remember that perspective is one of our keywords.

I would like to know if the poet has written any other poems from the point of view of objects.

She's written here about a clock.

I wonder if she might have written about a tree, or a book, or a house.

Now it's your turn.

You're going to give your initial, remember, that means your first response to the poem.

Think about these questions in your discussion.

What did you like about the poem, and do you have any questions about it? Pause the video now as you discuss.

Welcome back.

How did your discussion go? I hope it was great.

Let's explore what happens in the first six lines of the poem.

Here's the first two.

"It's five past three.

"Sixty-four eyes look a me." Here, the clock shares the time, and says how the whole class of children are looking at it.

Here are the next three lines.

"No.

Sixty-two.

Not Matthew.

"He hasn't learned to read my face." Now here the clock realises that one child, Matthew isn't looking at it, because he hasn't learned to read analogue time, and instead has a digital watch.

Hmm.

I wonder if any of you have a digital or an analogue watch, or whether you just rely on the clock in your classroom.

And here's line six.

"He's got digital.

A disgrace!" Now here, it's funny, isn't it? Because the clock seems annoyed that the boy is using digital time, and not reading the clock's analogue face.

Let's explore what's happens in the next seven lines.

Here are the first two of the next lot.

♪ I reach to 10, the school bell sounds, and then, relief.

♪ Now here, the clock describes a sound that signals the end of the day, and the children leave.

It uses the word, "relief" to describe how it feels.

Oh, that word, "relief." It's what we feel when something big, or stressful, or something that we were nervous about is over.

We've done it.

We feel good and calm.

This is how the clock feels.

Here are the next two lines.

"No more glueing , sticking, just me and the teacher." Now here, the clock says there is no more activity in the room, just such as children sticking, sticking sheets down in your books, and that it is just the clock and the teacher left.

And then those final three lines ticking, ticking, ticking.

Is the clock repeating the word "ticking" to show that time is passing.

And you might have spotted that ticking rhymes with "sticking" from the third line on this slide.

Time for a check.

I'd like you to put the following events from the poem in order.

Can you decide which of these events goes first, second, and third? Pause the video now as you decide.

Welcome back.

Well done.

Number one was, the clock notices that Matthew isn't looking at it.

Number two is, the bell sounds and the children leave at the end of the school day.

And that means that number three is, the clock repeats the word "ticking" three times.

Great job.

It is time for another discussion.

I'd like you to think about with somebody near you, how this poem made you feel.

Welcome back.

Izzy says, "This poem made me laugh about the idea "that objects could have feelings like people.

"I agree with Izzy.

"I found parts of this poem very funny." And Andeep says, "The poem made me picture my kitchen clock, "and what it would think.

"Watching my family and me having dinner.

"I agree.

I have a kitchen clock in my kitchen, "and I do wonder what it would think and say out loud "if it saw me and my family at our dinnertime." Great work in your discussions.

Remember, our personal responses to the poem will all be different because we are all unique.

It's time for your first task.

It's a discussion task.

I'd like you to refer to the poem, and discuss these questions with your partner.

How do you think the clock felt about being in a school classroom? What objects in your house would you like to write a poem from the point of view of and why? Hmm, that's a great question.

You could think about your whole home.

Can you think about things on your wall, on your bookshelves, in your bed, in one of your secret drawers maybe.

And, which parts of the poem did you find the most humorous or funny, and why? You might want to use sentence starters like this one.

"I think the clock didn't like "being in a classroom because," or I think the funniest part was," now these sentence starters help you to remember to speak in full sentences during your discussion.

Pause the video now and enjoy your discussion time.

Welcome back.

I hope you enjoyed your discussion.

Here's an idea that we could have had.

I think the clock didn't like being in a classroom because it uses the word "relief" after the children have all left.

Oh yes, and we discussed that word "relief" earlier.

It's something we feel after something big, or stressful, or nerve wracking has happened.

"I would like to write a poem "from the perspective of my scooter, "because it could be funny to hear "how scared it is when I do lots of jumps.

That's a really good idea, isn't it? Thinking about something that you use every day, or at the weekends that you do lots of scary jumps on.

I thought the most humorous part was when the clock became annoyed with Matthew.

Oh yes.

That was a very funny part when Matthew hadn't learned to read the analogue time because he was so busy looking at his digital watch.

Maybe you had some similar, or different ideas to these, and that's all fine.

Our responses to poetry will all be unique.

Let's move on to the second part of our lesson, exploring the poem.

Rachel Rooney uses a poetic technique called, "personification" in the poem, "Home Time." Personification is a way of describing a non-living thing like the clock, as if it acts or feels like a human.

So you've seen how Rachel Rooney does it with the clock.

Let's look at some more examples.

"The blanket cuddled the little girl warmly." Now, can a blanket really cuddle like a person can? No.

We're using a human verb, "cuddled," and attributing it to a non-human object, the blanket.

The sun smiled down happily.

The sun is not a human.

It cannot actually smile like a human.

But we are using a human verb, and attributing it to a non-human noun.

"The wind blew angrily." Here again, you can see the non-human wind doing a human action of blowing.

"The alarm clock screamed at me." Again, an alarm clock is not really capable of screaming like a human, but we use it to paint a vivid, or detailed picture in our reader or listener's mind.

The clock in "Home Time," by Rachel Rooney, is speaking as if it acts and feels like a human.

It seems to experience human emotions such as relief.

We also saw that it felt annoyed with Matthew.

Your turn for a check.

Which of these is an example of personification? Pause the video now as you decide.

Welcome back.

And you're right.

It was C.

"My watch looked up at me." A watch is a non-human thing.

It can't really do the human action of looking.

Well done.

Now Rachel Rooney writes the poem, "Home Time" from the perspective of the classroom clock.

Perspective is the point of view, or position from which the poet writes.

It's like the eyes of the narrative throughout the poem.

This means the poem is written like the clock is talking to the reader.

This can be a really good technique to use in humorous poetry, because it allows us to experiment with what an object might think or feel.

This can be particularly funny if the object thinks or feels differently to how we might expect.

For example, a classroom clock, which seems to not like noisy children.

We would expect a classroom clock to be very comfortable with noisy children.

I'm sure all of you in your classroom make lots of noise sometimes, and that's just fine.

We would expect a classroom clock to be able to cope with that if it were a human, but this classroom clock cannot.

Time for a discussion.

How does the poet create a sense of the clock not liking children or noise? You might want to reread the poem, and discuss what things you notice.

Pause the video here, whilst you have your discussion.

Welcome back.

And great ideas.

Let's hear from Izzy.

The clock seems annoyed at one of the children who isn't looking, and uses the word "relief" to describe when the class have all gone home.

Absolutely.

These ideas from Izzy definitely make us think that the clock doesn't like children or noise.

Maybe you had something similar to say in your discussion.

A poet chooses words carefully to have an impact on the reader.

Rachel Rooney chooses certain words in her poem to create a sense that the clock doesn't like being a classroom clock, and that's part of why it's such a funny poem.

She uses this word "disgrace" as a noun, and it means, "strong disapproval or disappointment." You might have heard that word before.

"Your behaviour was a disgrace." This means the person saying that to the child is saying that the behaviour was really bad, and very much disapproved of.

It's not a very positive word.

Here's another noun that Rachel Rooney uses, "relief." And we looked at that earlier in the lesson.

This is a feeling of happiness that something bad has ended or not happened.

You might have used that word before.

You might have said, "Ah, it was such a relief "that we didn't get any homework this week." The clock calls a child a disgrace for not being able to tell the time, and it says that it is a relief when the class have left.

These words create a sense that the object, the clock is grumpy, and frustrated with being a classroom clock.

Some words should be emphasised when reading aloud.

This means, said with a particular strength of tone of voice.

You're going to read lines six and eight out loud.

Remember, your poem is available in the additional materials.

You're going to emphasise, so say strongly, the words "disgrace" on line six, and "relief" on line eight.

When you read line six, you are emphasising the word "disgrace" to express to the audience how grumpy, and frustrated the clock is with a child who can't tell the time.

When you read Line eight, you are emphasising the word "relief" to express to the audience how thankful the clock is, that the children have all left, and it is now nice and quiet.

So good luck as you pause the video to read lines six and eight out loud with those words emphasised.

Pause the video now.

Well done for having such a good go at reading with emphasis.

Now it's time for task B.

It's another discussion.

I'd like you to re-read the whole poem out loud to a partner.

If you're working by yourself, you can read it to the screen, or to your hand.

You're going to use your voice to read the poem clearly, and with expression.

Focus on expressing the mood of the clock.

This is very important to Rachel Rooney how the clock feels, and how the clock feels about the children and the noise they make.

You may want to use gestures, so movement with your body to help you.

Good luck as you re-read the whole poem out loud to a partner, or someone, or something else near you.

Pause the video now.

Welcome back.

And well done for your great effort.

Now it's time to reflect on how you read the poem to your partner.

Did you read the poem in a loud, clear voice? Did you emphasise certain words to create a sense of the clock's mood? And did you use any gestures to express how grumpy or sank the clock was at different points in the poem? Maybe there's part of your reading aloud there, that you could reflect on, that you could have done better, and next time you can do it better with a little bit of focus on that area.

If you'd like to pause the video now, and repeat reading aloud the poem, you can, focusing on one of those key areas.

Let's hear from this child.

She says, "I emphasised the word "relief," by doing a big exhale (exhales) after I said it." That's a great idea.

Exhaling or breathing out is something that we do when we feel calm and relieved.

Let's summarise what we've learned today.

Rachel Rooney is a poet, and is known for writing imaginative poetry for children.

Rachel Rooney's poem, "Home Time" is written from the perspective of a classroom clock.

Personification is a way of describing a non-living thing as if it acts or feels like a human.

In this poem, the clock is speaking as if it is a human.

When we read aloud, we can emphasise certain words to express a feeling or emotion.

I have loved looking at this poem with you today, and I really hope to see you here again soon for another fantastic poetry lesson.

Well done all of you.