🌿 Nature Poems KS2 | Fun Cross-Curricular Writing & Performance Activities

Poetry gives children a chance to zoom in on the tiny details of nature 🐌 or zoom out to look at the whole planet 🌍. Whether it’s animals, trees, rivers or the environment, children love exploring the natural world through rhyme, rhythm and imagery.

For teachers, nature poems KS2 are perfect for linking English with science and geography. They can also spark rich discussions about caring for the environment, making this a truly cross-curricular activity.

👉 In my Poetry Days in primary schools across the UK I work hard to get the children excited about writing and performing their own poems. I visit over 100 schools every year and I’d love to work with your children and teachers.

📅 You can book me for:

In-person Poetry Days across the UK
Online Poetry Workshops (affordable and flexible)

➡ Secure your date here: Poets in Schools – Ian Bland

Let’s dive into some poems that celebrate and question our relationship with nature.

🐌 I Am a Snail (Shape Poem)

✨ Activity idea:
Invite children to write their own animal shape poem. They could try butterflies, fish, or birds. Link to my blog on Shape Poems KS2 for more creative examples.

🌍 Here Lies the Body of Planet Earth (Environmental Poem)

Here lies the body of Planet Earth
That gave the human race its birth
With valleys green and oceans wide
For lack of care the Earth just died

Flowers withered the sky turned black
And now those humans can’t go back.

Here lies the body all charred and burned
With lessons humans should have learned
Poisoned lakes and lifeless seas
There’s nothing left now save disease

The humans left it to its fate
And now they see it’s far too late.

✨ Activity idea:
Ask children to create their own environmental epitaph poems (see my blog on Epitaph Poems KS2). They could write short verses for endangered animals, forests, or rivers.

🌳 The Talking Tree

I’m older than castles,
I’m older than kings,
I’m home to the birds
Who all flutter their wings.

I whisper my secrets
Through leaves in the breeze,
I stand here forever —
The guardian of trees.

✨ Activity idea:
Children imagine a tree that can talk. What would it say about the world? This links beautifully with Personification Poems KS2 and can lead to performance poetry where pupils act as different trees in a forest.

💧 The River

I’m rushing, I’m racing,
I twist and I turn,
I tumble through valleys,
I sparkle and churn.

I carve through the mountains,
I thunder with might,
I carry the sunlight
And gleam in the night.

✨ Activity idea:
Invite pupils to write a poem in the first person as a river, volcano, or storm. This cross-links with Weather Poems KS2 and supports geography topics like rivers and coasts.

🦊 The Fox

With eyes like embers, sharp and bright,
I prowl the meadow late at night.
My paws make prints across the dew,
I vanish quick — you’d miss the view!

✨ Activity idea:
Children choose a wild animal and write a descriptive poem using similes and metaphors. Link to my Animal Poems KS2 blog for more inspiration.