Simile and metaphor poem in Year 3

[ShepherdMoons]

Dd has been beside herself tonight. She has cried and is totally stressed out about school and having to go in tomorrow. Their class teacher is not in this week and they've had a supply teacher. Today dd said most of the class were crying about the task that was very difficult to do.

They had to write a poem using metaphors and similes and it had to rhyme. She said she had cried with frustration, so had lots of other children too. Some of the SEND children were banging their head on the desk or also crying. I spoke to another parent who said their child found it really hard, they had to do this off the top of their head and no writing frame or extra help on the board.

AIBU to complain to the school tomorrow? I'm so upset for dd and the children, it sounds such a difficult thing to do!

Year 3?!

What on earth?

I couldn't do that myself with an English degree and 40 years teaching. Poor kids. Mad assignment.

“the sky at night is like a plate
the stars are crumbs of the food we ate”

This kind of thing?

Quite an interesting challenge but should be manageable for most I imagine. I definitely remember writing rhyming poems at that age. Adding similes and metaphors shouldn’t be too tricky as long as they have been taught what they are and have some confidence using them in sentences.

It would be do-able if more guidance was given such as metaphors/similes to do with heat/cold/moon, etc. to give a leg-up while still enabling others to fly with it.

The fact that no framing was given is piss-poor teaching. I worked in secondary and when this kind of stuff came up I would always write a (short) poem on the board as an example, with the topic given by the class, on the spot.
If you can't do it yourself, don't expect the children to do it either.

Possibly the supply teacher wasn't given full instructions?

I bet the teacher has a different side to that story.

The cat as big as a house
Was chasing a little mouse

I've done this exact lesson with year 3s and known other teachers who have. It's not too difficult but I'm guessing the supply teacher needed a bit more time to get to know how that class needs to learn, every class is different

Yep, no problem. I would work on a list of rhyming words with the children first and give them lots of potential examples verbally.
Would be better to do it as a class activity, rather than homework, because children need leading in to activities like this.