Poetry Box bubble time: Paula Green reads her poem ‘Anifables’ – so what does a lioniwi look like?

 

 

 

I am reading my poem ‘Anifables’ from The Letterbox Cat (Scholastic)

 

I have pictures in my head of what these MIXED–UP ANIMALS look like. Maybe you can draw or paint one for me to post on the blog.

OR you could make up your own mixed up animal – take half of one animal and put it with half of another.

I took lion and kiwi and came up with lioniwi.

I could have taken caterpillar and snail and come up with caternail! Or catersnail. Or Snaipillar!

You could give the strange creature A WHOLE POEM of their own!

What do they like to eat? How do they move? What noises do they make? Where do they sleep? What do they do that is fascinating or different?

You could illustrate your poem. I would love to see these!

Have fun!

 

you could record yourself reading your poem to send me (MP3 or MP4)

 

send to  paulajoygreen@gmail.com

please include your name age and name of school

don’t forget to put ANIFABLE challenge in subject line so I don’t miss it

don’t put your surname on drawings or paintings or collages (Poetry Box policy)

 

There is no deadline while we are living in our bubbles! Every Friday I will post some work by children. I will always answer your emails but not straightaway. If I haven’t replied after 3 or 4 days nudge me as I may have missed it.

 

You can also try:

Sally Sutton’s magic hat challenge

Celebrate your hero and listen to Barbara Else read

Tell me about your favourite bookshop or library

Play Pass the Poem with at least one other person

Write draw video comic strip letters poems stories about being in your bubble

My cloudy challenges and hear my cloud poem

My thank our supermarket workers challenge

Listen to me read Aunt Concertina and offer a cool challenge

Listen to me read my poem ‘Lick Lick Riff’ dog poem and offer a doggy cat tiger bat any animal challenge

Check out David Hill’s wonderful photo challenge

Listen to Swapna Haddow read her book and try a rabbit challenge

Try Johanna Aitchison’s hunt the teddy challenges

Ruth Paul reads her muddy poem and I offer muddy challenges

 

 

kia kaha

keep well

keep imagining

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poetry Box bubble time: Sally Sutton’s MAGIC HAT CHALLENGE

 

 

 

Here is my MAGIC HAT CHALLENGE:

You’ll need three hats. If you don’t have hats, use boxes. If you don’t have boxes, use bags. If you don’t have bags, use socks. If you don’t have socks … you will have cold feet. Whatever. Write down some settings on little pieces of paper and put them in the first hat.

A setting could be anywhere: home, the Moon, a sushi store, a bus, a carwash, the zoo… wherever.

Write down some characters with a one-word description on some more little pieces of paper and put them in the second hat, e.g. a nervous schoolgirl, a grumpy grandmother, a bossy bus driver, an irate llama. In the third hat: some examples of onomatopoeia, e.g. smash! kaboom! pitter-patter! whoosh! crunch!

Now close your eyes and pick one piece of paper from each hat and magic up a story!

Don’t forget your story must have a PROBLEM. For example: you choose a bossy bus driver, the zoo, crunch! Hmmm… Could the bus driver be at the zoo to pick up kids after a school trip? The kids are noisy, the bus driver is so busy yelling for quiet he/she doesn’t notice an escaped alligator has snuck onto the back seat… CRUNCH. No more bus driver….

Write (or tell) the story! And don’t forget to try it out on your parents. Trust me, you’ll be way better at it than them! Your story-writing is MAGIC! 😉

 

Sally Sutton

 

send to  paulajoygreen@gmail.com

please include your name age and name of school

don’t forget to put MAGIC HAT challenge in subject line so I don’t miss it

don’t put your surname on drawings or paintings or collages (Poetry Box policy)

 

There is no deadline while we are living in our bubbles! Every Friday I will post some work by children. I will always answer your emails but not straightaway. If I haven’t replied after 3 or 4 days nudge me as I may have missed it.

 

You can also try:

Celebrate your hero and listen to Barbara Else read

Tell me about your favourite bookshop or library

Play Pass the Poem with at least one other person

Write draw video comic strip letters poems stories about being in your bubble

My cloudy challenges and hear my cloud poem

My thank our supermarket workers challenge

Listen to me read Aunt Concertina and offer a cool challenge

Listen to me read my poem ‘Lick Lick Riff’ dog poem and offer a doggy cat tiger bat any animal challenge

Check out David Hill’s wonderful photo challenge

Listen to Swapna Haddow read her book and try a rabbit challenge

Try Johanna Aitchison’s hunt the teddy challenges

Ruth Paul reads her muddy poem and I offer muddy challenges

 

 

kia kaha

keep well

keep imagining

 

 

 

 

 

Poetry Box bubble time: Barbara Else reads from Go Girl and we invite you to share words and images of epic people

 

 

Illustration of Dame Catherine Tizard by Sarah Laing from

Go Girl: A Story of Epic NZ Women, Barbara Else, Penguin Books, 2018

 

 

 

Barbara Else reads the piece  ‘Dame Catherine Tizard: Governor-General’

 

(I loved listening to this! I found it so inspiring!)

 

Barbara Else has always loved books and stories. Reading and writing are her favourite activities. She also loves reading aloud from the books she’s written. Except for one time when she read a story about a lost cat to a class of five year olds. One little girl’s eyes brimmed so much with tears that Barbara rushed to the end of the story in case the tears spilled out and caused a flood.

Penguin Books page

 

 

I love this book. You will find many astonishing NZ women in here. Young girls who weren’t afraid to speak out, who blazed trails, and who have done extraordinary things.  The book celebrates these wonderful women but it also invites girls to GO for it.

There are also books celebrating boys who have grown into extraordinary men who aren’t afraid to speak out, who have blazed trails, and who have done extraordinary things.  These books celebrate  wonderful men but also invite boys to GO for it.

To this I would add ordinary people in our lives who are epic. Friends and family who are everyday heroes, who show incredible kindness, daring, courage, patience, understanding, generosity, love.

 

Your challenge: Barbara and I invite you to share some thing about an epic person, a hero in the news or in your life now.

You could write a poem, a letter, a story, draw a picture, do a painting or collage, do a comic strip or make a little video or audio.

 

 

send to  paulajoygreen@gmail.com

please include your name age and name of school

don’t forget to put HERO challenge in subject line so I don’t miss it

don’t put your surname on drawings or paintings or collages (Poetry Box policy)

 

There is no deadline while we are living in our bubbles! Every Friday I will post some work by children. I will always answer your emails but not straightaway. If I haven’t replied after 3 or 4 days nudge me as I may have missed it.

 

You can also try:

Tell me about your favourite bookshop or library

Play Pass the Poem with at least one other person

Write draw video comic strip letters poems stories about being in your bubble

My cloudy challenges and hear my cloud poem

My thank our supermarket workers challenge

Listen to me read Aunt Concertina and offer a cool challenge

Listen to me read my poem ‘Lick Lick Riff’ dog poem and offer a doggy cat tiger bat any animal challenge

Check out David Hill’s wonderful photo challenge

Listen to Swapna Haddow read her book and try a rabbit challenge

Try Johanna Aitchison’s hunt the teddy challenges

Ruth Paul reads her muddy poem and I offer muddy challenges

 

 

kia kaha

keep well

keep imagining

 

 

 

 

 

Poetry Box bubble time

 

dear children in Aotearoa

 

I really really really really really really

hope someone tries my Pass the Poem activity because

it was so cool to do with other children’s authors.

You can do it with one other person or as many as you like!

See here for how to do it!

 

I am still reading all the SUMMER poem postcards

 

I have some great things from other children’s authors this week!

 

HAPPY BUBBLE TIME

Kia kaha

Paula x

Poetry Box bubble time: children’s moments of joy

 

Here you go! I put a call out for children’s moments of joy  …. and here are some:

 

Me and my sister, Ada making puppets for our puppet show that we think we are going to call “The Fox wants Spaghetti”. It was quite hard to do the sewing but Dad and Mum helped and I felt so much joy when I finished my Fox. Ada made two owls. Lazlo Ruhfus (8) Waiheke Primary School.

 

 

Benita Kape shared this photo of her six year old great-granddaughter, Petra, in Australia:

 

 

Four photos of photos of JOY from Lily 8 and Rose 8, Valley School Pukekohe.
Bike riding, finding treasure (bird’s nest etc), and baking / icing / eating cupcakes.

 

Poet Anna Jackson shared this:

 

Poet Johanna Aitchison gives me joy every day with her teddy bear antics – she is SO creative!

 

t h a n k   y o u

will do it again one day

 

Paula Joy Green ( yes my middle name!)

Poetry Box connections: getting your emails plus a JOY invite and a BOOKSHOP and LIBRARY invite

 

Lapuke H (then 5) at Books for Kids, Grey Street, Hamilton – I LOVE the window!!

 

 

Poet Mere Taito brought her young son to hear me read from Letterbox Cat when it was just launched a few years ago. I didn’t know her then, but now I know and love her poetry!

 

 

 

Mere sent me these photos this week and it made feel happy after feeling a bit sad about all the things that have gone missing in our lives at the moment, about some people being mean in supermarkets, about people getting sick.

I am inviting you to send me a photo with a sentence or two on something that has given you joy in the past week in your bubble. I will post some at 4 pm today (with parental or guardian permission).

 

send to  paulajoygreen@gmail.com

please include your name age and name of school

don’t forget to put JOY challenge in subject line so I don’t miss it

don’t put your surname on drawings or paintings or collages (Poetry Box policy)

 

a n d  . . . . . . .

 

I am also inviting you to write or draw or make something for your favourite bookshop or library (a poem, a letter, a story, a picture, a comic strip, a card, a book pile, a book spine poem). Don’t forget to tell me which library or bookshop.

 

send to  paulajoygreen@gmail.com

please include your name age and name of school

don’t forget to put BOOKSHOP LIBRARY challenge in subject line so I don’t miss it

don’t put your surname on drawings or paintings or collages (Poetry Box policy)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poetry Box bubble time: Pass the Poem

 

by Sofia Glucina (aged 7)

 

The Cloud Birds

 

In the leafy tree

where the cloud birds roost

a thread of song curls through the breeze.

 

Balanced on my branch, I feel the forest breathe

as every shadow of the day falls dappled through the canopy,

the crispy twigs, the leaves like lace,

hands intertwined in another time.

 

The great tree is a cradle, a refuge for the lost,

and in that high sky-climbing tree, that sunlight-seeking, reaching tree,

the cloud birds sing of rainbow rains.

 

in order of lines: Paula Green, Elena de Roo, Bill Nagelkerke, Amber Moffat, Ben Brown, Philippa Werry, Renee Liang, David Eggleton, Sacha Cotter, Paula Green

 

 

 

My pass the poem activity for you all

I thought it would be fun to play pass the poem. Like when you draw a head, fold the paper and pass it to the next person and they add a body to the neck.

So  I wrote the first line and then each poet passed it onto the next poet until it got back to me!

It was fun. Like opening a parcel.

 

You might like to play pass the poem.

1. Get your friends or family to say yes.

2. Work out the order.

3. Pass the poem from one person to the next as the poem grows. So person number 3 will see the first two lines!  Person 4 will see the first three liens and so on.

4. Pick a title.

5. Get someone to illustrate it.

 

You could borrow one of my starter lines if you like:

 

A snail slides and slips

 

On a blue day   (or pick a colour)

 

Wild wild wind

 

The dancing fish

 

On my scooter whizzing

 

The zip zang bird

 

Inside the secret box

 

It’s started raining cats and dogs

 

The moon in the sky

 

The whole family

 

Our cat is grey

 

Wouldn’t it be fantastic

 

Or make up your own!

 

 

send to  paulajoygreen@gmail.com

please include your name age and name of school

don’t forget to put PASS THE POEM challenge in subject line so I don’t miss it

don’t put your surname on drawings or paintings or collages (Poetry Box policy)

 

There is no deadline while we are living in our bubbles! Every Friday I will post some work by children. I will always answer your emails but not straightaway. If I haven’t replied after 3 or 4 days nudge me as I may have missed it.

 

You can also try:

Write draw video comic strip letters poems stories about being in your bubble

My cloudy challenges and hear my cloud poem

My thank our supermarket workers challenge

Listen to me read Aunt Concertina and offer a cool challenge

Listen to me read my poem ‘Lick Lick Riff’ dog poem and offer a doggy cat tiger bat any animal challenge

Check out David Hill’s wonderful photo challenge

Listen to Swapna Haddow read her book and try a rabbit challenge

Try Johanna Aitchison’s hunt the teddy challenges

Ruth Paul reads her muddy poem and I offer muddy challenges

 

 

 

 

kia kaha

keep well

keep imagining