Music can present familiar topics in new and memorable ways, improving the chance that children will retain both the subject matter and the musical ideas…The Beat Goes On team is consistently impressed with Pie Corbett’s work in this area, so we got in touch to see what gems of cross-curricular wisdom he could share.
Write a shape poem
Pie Corbett provides some hints and tips to help your class write a shape or observation poem. This video is taken from the Igniting Writing ‘Waterworlds’ interactive whiteboard CD-ROM.
Building a poetry spine
In this free four-page resource written by Pie Corbett, Pie explains how to build a bank of poems to use with children at KS1.
A-Z of poetry reading ideas
In this document Pie lists an A-Z of ideas for how a poem could be used in class.
Creating a playful poem
A unit of creative work inspired by the poems ‘In the City of Silences’ and ‘The Cave of Curiosity’, the latter based on the simple idea of creating a place (cave) and linking it to an abstract idea (curiosity). The unit covers an abstract noun game, shared and independent writing.
The Manor House
Talk for Writing trainer Jo Pearce explains how a model text can be used to help pupils become effective writers of suspense stories. Download the model text here, along with teaching notes and worked examples.
Little Vixen Street
A suspenseful model text by Talk for Writing Expert Dean Thompson, with accompanying teaching notes explaining how the text might be utilised to develop a unit of work: “Anthropomorphising the cunning or wily fox is a very popular idea in many stories”
Short burst writing in the Talk for Writing sequence
Talk for Writing trainer, Maria Richards, explores how to teach writing well through Talk for Writing’s short burst approach: “Short burst writing has transformed the way I think about teaching writing skills and I have now seen how it can powerfully transform children as writers too. Plan it into your Talk for Writing sequences and find your transformations”.
Feeling the impact at Carlton Hill
Maurice Leahy, teacher at Carlton Hill Primary School in Brighton, studied one child’s writing over a year to see the impact that Talk for Writing made.