What did the good
teacher’s do, when the children were not reading poetry.
That’s right! They shaped it up! The book ‘Picture a Poem’ by Gina Douthwaite (Author, Illustrator),
allowed us to do just that. It had poems in all sorts of shapes – rocket, shoe, bat, dinosaur and more.
We read some of these poems to children at Chimbel, ages 10- 15 years. We described the dolphin –
in the shape of a dolphin. Then we read ‘Shake Up – Shape up’ which is about not bottling up your
feelings – in the shape of a bottle. ‘Bones’ was a poem about the human skeletal system-
in the shape of a skull. The ‘Leaf of Feelings’ was a list of emotions – in
the shape of a leaf.
We guessed at a shape,
that made us guess
what it was- in the
shape of a rocket.
The 4 children in
the session wanted
to listen to more
picture poems. So
we helped them
write one of their own- together. So they penned down one on- Books!
