Kitty Says!
Kitty:
They’ve got you long necked lambkins,
You’re properly boxed in, hey!
Don’t you wish you could be me,
No fences bar my way!
Llamas:
As you can see, we have been shorn,
We feel so light and free!
When do you get clipped and snipped?
Kitty:
I DON’T! They let me be!
JR Poulter
Moon Zoom
JR Poulter
Veggie Monster – teacher notes –
Activity – Class debate on “Advertising and Prime Time TV, Their Role in Demonising Vegetables”
Activity – Make up an advertising campaign to popularise vegetables. Research TV advertisements and prime time TV shows to see what sort of food is promoted and how. I can think of one popular TV soapie, which has its cast eating pizza and drinking beer in most episodes. What does this say to young viewers.
Note what sort of advertisements come on between 4.00pm and 8.00pm, the time many children, families and young folk would be watching TV. How might you use your campaign to change this?
Activity – Make up recipes with vegetables as the main ingredients – they must be delicious enough that YOU would want to eat them! If there are any vegetarians in the class, ask them to be a consultative panel and to judge the result of the class cooking attempts to make veggies into taste tempting foods!
Activity: Australians have ‘adopted’ vegetables from all over the world.
Create a world map and paste labels bearing the names of common vegetables used in Australia on their countries of origin.
Activity: Are there vegetables that are native to Australia? Study the foods grown and gathered by various Aboriginal groups. If possible, invite a local indigenous leader to discuss with the class the native foods they used and how they prepared them.
Once Upon a Time by J.R.Poulter
Once upon a long ago
In the distant mists of time
There was a prince who had to make
A poesy all in rhyme.
He had to weave a wondrous tale
For his intended bride,
That swept the legends of the land
The myths from far and wide
Into one vast saga,
A tome to end all tomes!
He set out to collect the tales,
It took him far from home.
The prince crossed many deserts,
He climbed too many hills,
He walked through sun and snow and sleet.
He suffered many ills!
At last, he had his great big book!
At last, he’d wed his bride!
But as he neared the castle,
He heard a mournful sigh…
What stood there was a ruin,
Wind moaned through empty halls.
Of all the pomp and pageantry,
Nothing was left at all…
Amidst a drape of spider webs
Within the central court,
He found a tomb whose statuary
Had been most marvelous wrought.
There was his bride, robed as a queen,
Her king was by her side.
A scroll lay open on her lap
Of fictions, fables, lies…
The prince stood still,
As turned to stone.
The ancient beams
Above him groaned.
A crack, a scream,
He was no more.
The Tome of Tales
Lay on the floor.
The wind tore at the pages,
Tossing them far away.
All that was left, the marble tomb
And what it had to say,
JR Poulter
Lost Generation by J.R.Poulter, image by Dandi Palmer
Australian Children’s Poetry 