Thursday 29 May 2014

Simple past tense moods swings poems

In UKS2 in Year 5 and Year 6 we investigate extended feelings- so we move on from simple characteristics such as sad, happy , bored, interested and explore other words to describe how we are feeling. 

Let's create a performance based upon these new words to describe feelings and link this to the change in moods.




The whole activity is based upon  the use of present and past tense use of the verb "to be " in the first and third person singular (I am/was and also s/he is /was) and a wider range of emotions looking for opposites in describing emotions.



  1. Introduce and practise with the children the key verbal phrases they will need to be able to say "I am / I was " and to say "s/he is and s/he was"

  1. .Ask the children to think about past and present. Stand the children in front of an imaginary line on the floor. Ask the children to listen to one of the six key phrases above that you have introduced them to. Ask them to become time travellers . Explain to the class that to go back in time they must step backwards across the line and to travel forwards they need to position themselves in front of the imaginary line.
  2. Ask the children to listen out for the phrase you say and to position themselves correctly
  3. Allow the children to work through the above activity several times with eyes open.Now can they be brave time travellers and listen with eyes shut and step forwards of backwards depending upon what they hear.This is a great way to conduct some AfL- who can really do this independently without following someone else's lead?
Throw of the dice and change the time 
  1. Divide the class in to groups of four- two boys and two girls preferably.You will need dice- one per group Each group needs a die. They roll the dice and if it lands on an odd number they must say a past tense phrase and  add an emotion word.If it lands on an even number they must say a present tense phrase and an emotion word.

Mood Swings
  1. Working in the groups of four children - provide the groups with a set of 10 emotion word cards and a bi-lingual dictionary (make sure there are five pairs of opposites e.g happy/sad). Firstly the children need to check the meaning of the key emotions using a dictionary.Can they as a group think of an action and facial expression to match the meaning of the emotion.
  2. Can the groups now divide the emotions into negative and positive emotions?
  3. Can they change the categorisation and  find the matching pairs of opposites?


Mood Swing Poems 
  1. Now can they create a simple performance poem  to depict the mood swings using the key emotion cards- one in the present tense and one in the past tense using the first person singular. Each group must think of a movement pattern that reflects past and present tense - (stepping forwards and backwards /standing back to back in pairs and turning round for past and present etc).Each group must explore ways of portraying and saying the key phrases. 
  2. Can the groups now add a past and present tense mood swing echo. This means that two people in the group are assigned the responsibility of saying  the first person singular mood swing statements (e.g I am happy / I was sad) and the other two children in the group need to echo the statements in the third person singular past or present tense using the correct third person singular "he"/"she" to reflect the speaker (e.g I am tired (girl speaking)/ she is tired , I was lively (boy speaking) /he was lively).
  3. Ask the children working in pairs or individually to create and write their own mood swing present and past tense poems.Allow the children to access and use new words for emotions in the bilingual dictionaries . 


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