New
New
Year 2

Reading and responding to 'Wide Open' by Rachel Rooney

I can give a personal response to the poem and give some evidence to justify my ideas.

New
New
Year 2

Reading and responding to 'Wide Open' by Rachel Rooney

I can give a personal response to the poem and give some evidence to justify my ideas.

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Lesson details

Key learning points

  1. Rachel Rooney is a poet and is known for writing imaginative poetry for children.
  2. ‘Wide Open’ by Rachel Rooney is a poem about a special eye that can see anything.
  3. The poem is imaginative and has themes of wonder and discovery.
  4. The poem explores themes of imagination, wonder and discovery.

Keywords

  • Theme - a big idea, topic or message that recurs within a text

  • Imaginative - having the ability to create vivid mental images or concepts that may not exist in reality

  • Imagery - the use of language to create a mental picture or sensory experience for the reader or listener

Common misconception

Children can think that there is only one way to respond to a poem and you can have the right or wrong understanding of it.

Avoid posing questions which may lead children to the idea that there is a right or wrong answer when discussing the poem. Try to encourage open responses to the poem, celebrating each unique response from individuals.


To help you plan your year 2 English lesson on: Reading and responding to 'Wide Open' by Rachel Rooney, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...

Read and display other poems by Rachel Rooney for pupils to enjoy.
Teacher tip

Equipment

You need a copy of the poem ‘Wide Open’, which is featured on page 8 of the 2014 Frances Lincoln Children's Books edition of ‘Life as a Goldfish’ written by Rachel Rooney, for this lesson.

Licence

This content is © Oak National Academy Limited (2025), licensed on Open Government Licence version 3.0 except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).

Lesson video

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Prior knowledge starter quiz

Download quiz pdf

6 Questions

Q1.
What are rhyming words?

words that start with a capital letter
words that describe something
Correct answer: words that have a similarity of sounds between the ending syllables

Q2.
What is the name for a person who writes a poem?

Correct answer: a poet
an artist
a farmer

Q3.
True or false? Poems are non-fiction texts.

Correct Answer: False, false

Q4.
What is the name for words that describe nouns?

Correct answer: adjectives
verbs
adverbs

Q5.
True or false? A noun is a person, place or thing.

Correct Answer: True, true

Q6.
Which of these words rhymes with 'sun'?

hat
hot
Correct answer: fun
ball

Assessment exit quiz

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6 Questions

Q1.
Who wrote the poem 'Wide Open'?

Michael Rosen
Correct answer: Rachel Rooney
Joseph Coelho

Q2.
Where was Rachel Rooney born?

Correct answer: London
Mancheser
Leeds

Q3.
What job did Rachel Rooney do before she became a poet?

Correct answer: teacher
police officer
nurse

Q4.
True or false? When she was a child, Rachel loved poetry and wrote lots of poems, but she never showed them to anyone and she stopped when she was in her teens.

Correct Answer: true, True

Q5.
True or false? Being 'imaginative' means having the ability to create vivid mental images or concepts that may not exist in reality.

Correct Answer: true, True

Q6.
'Wide Open' is a poem about a special ...

car.
Correct answer: eye.
coat.