City Scenes Level 6-8

City Scenes is a beautifully structured poetic text that captures a child's perspective of bustling city life. Walking home with their mother, the child observes a range of busy, dynamic scenes, which are reflected in the rhyme and rhythm of the poem. The text is divided into a non-rhyming introduction and conclusion, with a rhyming middle that features assonance-based couplets. The use of œing endings like rushing and dashing, combined with an ellipsis and expressive punctuation, offers excellent opportunities to teach poetic structure and fluency. Plurals in the text are not always reflected in the illustrations, prompting discussion about textual versus visual interpretation. This book supports strategies such as using visual cues and linking personal experiences to the text. Ideal for guided reading and poetry writing lessons, City Scenes encourages creativity and engagement with language through the lens of everyday life in the community.

Educational Benefits:

• Introduces poetic structure, rhyme, and assonance in early texts.
• Supports vocabulary development through action verbs with œing endings.
• Reinforces interpreting meaning from text and images.
• Encourages making personal connections with real-life settings.

Classroom Ideas:

• Have students write their own city or neighbourhood poem.
• Use visual imagery from the book for a drawing and writing activity.
• Compare life in the city with life in the country through class discussion.
• Highlight and categorise œing words from the text.

Safety & Information:

• Suitable for ages 5+
• Book dimensions: 16.5cm x 14.5cm
• 8 pages, softcover
• Classroom safe; suitable for literacy and creative writing sessions