Winter Poetry with Year 2

As part of an enrichment programme for Year 2 pupils, our head of Drama and a group of Year 7 boys from Aldwickbury visited The Linden Academy to lead a drama workshop in Winter Poetry.  In all we led four classes of an hour length in which we used the text, ‘Stopping by a Wood on a Snowy Evening’ by Robert Frost.

The children were shown pictures of snowy woods and asked to find words that described the trees and then the snow. They offered a rich vocabulary which we used as the basis of a movement piece to create the wood and the snow falling down. Having filled the space with a snowy wood we split into groups, with the Aldwickbury boys each leading a group, to see if we could use our imagination to discover who the traveller might be, why he or she was travelling through the night and what the promises he or she had made were.

Aims

To bring alive a poetry through drama and to enhance vocabulary.

Background

Part of a broader partnership between Aldwickbury School and The Shared Learning Trust.

Resources

The Linden's school hall.

Impact

The workshop enabled the children to imagine different story outcomes. For example, a drum maker going to the castle to deliver a djembe drum as a Christmas gift for the Queen.  Rescue rangers searching for two lost boys who hadn’t come home, the boys heard the horse’s harness bells and cried out for help. A girl who was chopping wood and she met run away horse, she made it stop and calmed it down. Someone rescuing the animals from the woods because there was a freak cold spell and all the animals couldn’t find safe shelter, the animals promised to return in the spring. A Daddy coming home for Christmas and he had lots of presents.

Pupil Involvement

All of Year 2 - 56 children.

Frequency

An annual event.