Sea of Syllables at Salway Ash

In the second in our series of Meteorology-themed poetry workshops, we spent the morning with Years 1 and 2 at Salway Ash CE Primary School and introduced them to the ancient Japanese poetry form of Haiku. The Western interpretation of the form is a three-line poem with a syllable count of 5-7-5.

These 5 and 6-year-old young writers had great fun clapping the syllables in their own names to get into the counting groove, and were fantastic at grasping the rigid 17-syllable count of a Haiku, which they then posted on our poetry wall.

We’re collating all the poetry from Salway Ash for a special school anthology. Reception class recently wrote List and What If… poems, which you can read about here. And with Personification Poetry, Odes, and Limericks to come from Key Stage 2 classes, this is shaping up to be a super collection of young poetry voices.