Kate Williams

CHRISTMAS LIGHTS POETRY-WRITING – where to start?

Who, in your class, has seen some Christmas lights and can tell you what they were like? Perhaps you have some right there, for the children to describe and respond to. Are they warm and welcoming, or mysterious and fascinating? Are they dazzling and flashing like precious diamonds, or softly shimmering, like enchanting fairy wands? Or what?

Every child will have their own experiences and associations to draw from, but you, as their creative guide, can help them develop and express their ideas, with inspiring spurs. 

COLOURS, MOVEMENTS, FEELINGS and more…

What colours can the lights be? Soft amethyst? Warm magenta? Angel’s halo gold? And how do they shine? Do they glow, glint, twinkle, spin, wink, dance, quiver, or what, in the winter gloom?  Ask how those magical, festive lights make them feel, too: cheerful, excited, happy, hopeful? 

RESOURCES –

I have some paid downloadable sheets in my resources catalogue at TES Resources.

Search for Christmas Lights, and you’ll find a couple of freebies and others you can see pretty well without paying to download, though prices are all low.

Here’s an example sheet:

Children not celebrating Christmas can still enjoy the wonders of a lit-up room or outdoor scene. Perhaps include other winter lights, such as those of traffic, traffic lights, ‘cat’s eye’ road markings, lighted windows and buildings, trains, aeroplanes, the stars and moon.

Help your class construct lines, developing their ideas through imagery and apt word-choices.

FIRST LINE –

Discuss possible opening lines, such as:

Christmas lights can be…
Through my window I saw…
Lighting up the bitter night,…
Dancing in the darkness,…
Twilight twinkles,…

Or something quite different!

POEM FORMAT –

Rhymes can come later, if at all. Older children can then condense their poems into haiku, where rhymes are really irrelevant, or re-work them as a recipe (e.g. Take a quiver of candlelight and sprinkle with silver sparkles…). Note the alliteration there, adding to the fun. Again, the poems could take the form of riddles – What am I? or What did I see?

Or take a Christmas bauble and personify it: what is it thinking, where does it float off to? Does it carry its uplifting powers to someone in need, or melt the cruel frost?

Have fun! I know the children will.

Kate

Squeak! Squawk! Roar! – my debut animal poetry book, comes out on 9th January ’25 with Otter-Barry Books. There are no Christmas sparkles in it, but there are other sorts of sparkle, and other beauties and wonders too, as well as funny, crazy, creepy and mysterious elements to be explored. An ideal gift for that dull post-Christmas time – or for any child you forgot to give to – not forgetting birthdays too!