Room 10 Homework week 10 Term 1

Here is a poem by Doug McLeod the author of our shared book "Tumble Turn".
Read the poem and then complete the activity and post onto the blog.

PUFFER FISH By Doug MacLeod

My brother had a puffer fish,
He kept it on his desk.
A slimy little puffer fish,
Balloon-like and grotesque.
And if you took it by surprise
Or loudly slammed the door,
It puffed till it was twice the size
That it had been before.
One day, we found the puffer fish
Was absent from its bowl.
Our cat looked rather devilish,
For she had downed it whole.
And how my wicked brother laughed
When pussy said, ‘Mia-ow!’
Inflated like a rubber raft
Then loudly went kerpow.

Now Try this.....
Rhyming poems are lots of fun, but in fact are extremely difficult to write well. You need a good sense of rhythm, and know how to rhyme without it disrupting the poem you are trying to write.
A good start is to write a four line poem in which only the second and fourth lines rhyme. Choose a subject (it certainly doesn't have to be humorous) and think about what you want to the poem to say. Poems with short lines do lend themselves to humour, and longer lines allow you to sound more serious. If your rhymes are not working, or your rhythm is clunky, try a different pair of rhyming words.
The best thing you can do is to read good rhyming poems and listen to the rhythm and think about the rhyming words. Doug has used desk and grotesque to start with - his rhymes are suprising, and it adds to the fun!