Oxford Level 10
Oxford Level 11
Snow Poems
Teaching Notes author: Thelma Page
Vocabulary chart
SNOW POEMS
Rhymes and spelling patterns
Who Saw the Footprints in
the Snow?
snow/go out/about today/away too/flew hedge/ledge deep/sleep son/fun
Stop Calling Me, Snow
yet/set wings/rings fear/here queen/been crawl/snowball dizzy/busy know/snow
Ten White Snowmen
line/nine straight/eight heaven/seven sticks/six drive/five door/four tree/three
yew/two sun/one alone/none
Thin Ice!
show/go sink/rink stick/thick thin/in shout/out go/so
The Brown Bear
blow/snow soon/moon heat/eat deep/sleep
Jack Frost
who/through toes/blows sheet/feet
Frozen Stiff
pin/in too/shoe go/so tight/might please/freeze hem/them
Snowball
snowball
Guided/Group reading activities
To understand the differences between verbs in the first, second and third person, through experimenting
with transforming sentences and noting which words need to be changed.
Stop Calling Me, Snow
•Read the poem together and look at the picture. Ask the children: Who do you think is speaking?
•Read the first verse again. Then suggest that the teacher is speaking instead. Begin by changing the
first verse to:
”Stop calling him, snow,
He can’t come just yet”.
•Ask the children to suggest how the next two lines would need to be changed to make sense.
•Read the next verse, and ask: Who is meant by “you” in this verse? Ask: Would it make sense if the
teacher said it?
•Read the next verse, substituting “him” for “me” and “he” for “I”.
•Ask the children to continue with the substitution through the poem.
•At the end, ask: Which version do you like best, when the boy is the speaker or when the teacher is
the speaker?
Do the children understand how to change the pronouns to change the speaker’s identity? Can they
suggest how to do this consistently?
Independent/paired activities
•Ask the children to work with a partner. Ask them to talk about what they like to do in the snow. Get
each child in the pair to choose one thing he or she likes. Say: Write two sentences, one sentence
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about what you like and one about what your partner likes. Discuss whether a sentence is written in
the first person or in the third person.
•Ask the children to read “Snowball” on page 16, and then to rewrite it in the third person.
Speaking and listening activities
To choose and prepare poems and stories for performance, identifying appropriate expression, tone,
volume and use of voice or other sounds.
Who Saw the Footprints in the Snow?
•Read the poem together. Focus on the repetition. Ask: What would be the best way to read these
lines? Let the children memorise the lines and say them as a chorus. Discuss whether they should
be said loudly or softly, or whether they should change each time? Encourage the children to make
suggestions.
•Ask the children to find the verses that say what the characters did. Ask the children to suggest
actions to go with these lines.
•Discuss how to present the poem. Will it be best if one person reads and acts out the character lines?
Or should one person mime as everyone says the lines? Decide which way is more effective.
•Discuss whether older or younger children would be the better audience to perform to. Let the
children practise so that they can say or read the poem without any delays.
•Present the poem to a different class.
Check that the children:
■try
out different ways to read the poem and say which is more effective
■can
decide how to vary their speech and add actions to make the performance more interesting.
Writing
To describe and sequence key incidents in a variety of ways, e.g. by listing, charting, mapping, making
simple storyboards.
Ten White Snowmen
•Enjoy reading the poem. Write the numbers from nine down to one in a list on a board.
•Ask the children to look through the poem to tell you the rhyming word for each number. Use
mapping lines to match the number to each rhyme.
•Ask the children to learn the poem, using the lists to remind them what comes next.
•Ask the children to write a list of numbers from nine to one.
•Ask them to use mapping lines to match each number to a new rhyming word that they think of
themselves, e.g. nine, fine.
•Ask the children to use these notes to write their own countdown poem with a new title, e.g. Ten Toy
Soldiers, Ten Little Kittens.
Are the children able to use the mapping format to help them to remember the main points of the
poem? Can they use a similar format to create their own poem?
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