It’s World Vegan Day today and to mark the occasion, here’s a poem written by Christine McLaughlin, Director of Teaching and Learning at Better Tuition. We use it for teaching about onomatopoeia (words that sound like their meaning): how many examples can you find?
No monkeys were harmed in the posting of this blog!
The Monkey Catcher
The honey bee buzzes and the cat miaows
The little bird cheeps and the wild wolf howls
Neigh goes the horse and squeak goes the mouse
and crash go the monkeys that live in my house
They hide under my bed and they chatter, chatter, chatter
On the stairs they clatter, clatter, clatter
Up on the roof the raindrops drum
Under the bed the monkeys hum
They eat all the bananas: chomp, chomp, chomp
Here comes the monkey catcher: stomp, stomp stomp
Out comes his net and a big slimy smile
The monkeys screech and shriek for a while.
He’s got seven shackles, one for each tail
He’s come to take them to monkey jail.
All falls silent: no clattering or chattering
Not a single sound: no pittering or pattering
From under the bed come a rustle and a creak
The monkey catcher sniggers and bends to take a peek
The monkey catcher gasps and stands agape
For under the bed is a great, big ape!
Stare, stare, stare goes the great big ape
His fists are huge and his head’s a funny shape
The monkey catcher’s heart goes tap, tap, tap
And tap, tap, tap and tap, tap, tap
Boo! Shouts the ape and Aaargh shouts the catcher
And here comes a monkey – the one named Ratcher
Out of the wardrobe they leap one by one
Crasher and Basher and Masher and Dasher
It would be quite wrong to tell what went on
But suffice it to say that the monkeys won
And when the man crept off at a quarter to ten
He wasn’t a monkey catcher ever again
No stomping feet, just pitter and patter
His voice was a whisper and his head was much flatter
The honey bee buzzes and the cat miaows
The little bird cheeps and the wild wolf howls
Neigh goes the horse and squeak goes the mouse
and crash go the monkeys that live in my house
(c) Christine McLaughlin, 2011. All rights reserved, but feel free to use the poem for educational purposes, etc.
