Teachers - Firework poetry ideas - updated

For any teachers planning poetry-writing sessions, or topics related to fireworks in any way, over half term, I've finally ground to a stop in my lengthy spiel on the subject, having reached the end of my sample session approach on For teachers page.

There's even more I could have droned on about, of course, such as how I prompt for expressive and adventurous imagery, and encourage its development, or how I might open out the firework theme in follow-on poetry, or use the session's output to produce a performance, display, song, piece of music, dance, story, or combination of all these - time and facilities permitting.

Poetry opens so many doors, through which children can find their own personal ways of developing and expressing themselves! Yet a poem itself can be so small and simple, a child can hold it in their hand, see the whole of it at a glance, hear it in their heads, learn and recite it, gaze at it on the wall, and when they stop and consider that they wrote it, up goes their self esteem, and their zest for attainment all round.

I hope, actually, that you teachers are not planning as I type this, but allowing yourselves a bit of precious recuperation time. I see, in every school I visit, how nonsensically overburdened today's teachers are. How would you all survive without this tiny half-term oasis? Firework poetry will go off with a bang whichever which way it's lit... except in the rain. (I'll be posting a poem about that scenario soon, hoping it doesn't come true.)