Myths about teaching can hold you back
- Year 2
Exploring and performing 'Elephant Beat' and 'Night Soup' by James Carter
I can perform a poem in front of an audience.
- Year 2
Exploring and performing 'Elephant Beat' and 'Night Soup' by James Carter
I can perform a poem in front of an audience.
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Lesson details
Key learning points
- The poem ‘Elephant Beat’ tells a story about the adventure of riding an elephant.
- It has a structured rhythm, which gives it a marching feel.
- ‘Night Soup’ is a poem about creating an imaginary, magical ‘soup’ made from elements of the night.
- When performing a poem, we can vary our volume to create different effects.
- Using expression and gestures can make our performances fun and interesting for the audience to watch.
Keywords
Rhythm - the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that creates the beat or flow of the poem
Volume - the loudness or softness of your voice when speaking or reading a poem
Expression - reading with feelings and emotion to bring the poem to life
Gesture - a movement that helps express an idea or meaning
Common misconception
Pupils may find it hard to identify the rhythm of the poem.
The best way to model this is through clapping or marching out the rhythm and letting them hear the beat.
To help you plan your year 2 English lesson on: Exploring and performing 'Elephant Beat' and 'Night Soup' by James Carter, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your year 2 English lesson on: Exploring and performing 'Elephant Beat' and 'Night Soup' by James Carter, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 1 English lessons from the Performance poetry unit, dive into the full primary English curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.
Equipment
You need access to a copy of the poems, 'Elephant Beat' and 'Night Soup', which are available in the additional materials for this lesson.
Licence
Lesson video
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Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Match the keywords to the correct definition.
a person who writes poetry
repetition of the sounds at the end of words
the repeated use of sounds, words or phrases
Q2.Select the statements that are true about James Carter.
Q3.Select the places that the poet visits in ‘A Ticket to Kalamazoo!’
Q4.True or false? An audience is a show that you put on for others.
Q5.What are James Carter’s top tips for performing poetry?
Q6.True or false? The pace of our voice means how fast or slow we speak.
Assessment exit quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Match the keywords to the correct definitions.
the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem
the loudness or softness of your voice when speaking or reading a poem
reading with feelings and emotion to bring the poem to life
a movement that helps express an idea or meaning