Tortoise

The group had specifically asked if I could bring in another animal, so I borrowed a colleague's tortoise and we watched it scoot about the floor for a while. Before I gave out the poetry templates, I issued the children with colour charts like this one so they could gauge the exact shades on the tortoise. For a warm-up, I'd asked them to think of processes in nature which happened very slowly, the sort of thing you could only see properly if you used time-lapse photography, so they were already in a poetic frame of mind.

Box of Whackiness

This is an idea I came across on Twitter. It was the idea of @buntyhoven's daughter and she kindly allowed me to share it. The premise is, you create a box of wholesome, no-props-required dares for use at a sleepover or party.

It does need a bit of prep. Write out your own dares (use the list above or think of your own) and let the children have a turn each so they get the idea. My group of Y5 and 6s absolutely loved this part.

Unless you have a supply of small boxes already made, the children will need to build their own. Google 'cuboid net' and then print the net onto a card for each student. There's a good net here: cuboid net. Provide the children with felt tips and perhaps sticky shapes to jazz up the sides of the box. They'll need scissors and glue to assemble their boxes too.

When they've finished, let them take turns picking dares out of each other's boxes.

I think this session could have lasted for two hours rather than the single one we had, but next week we have a visitor coming...

Ridiculous New School Rules

As usual for this point in the term, I don't have permission to post any of the children's work yet. Instead here's the plan I used, and you'll just have to take my word for it the children's versions were very funny.

I took the idea for whacky new school rules from Brian Moses' blog, which is a brilliant fund of ideas for poetry and other forms of creative writing. We began by listing some of the normal rules we have in school and the reasons behind them. Then I suggested there might be some new rules coming in at half term, for instance if you own a pet, you have to ride it to school. ("But I have a goldfish, Miss!" "I'd crush my hamster!")

The children quickly understood we were looking for silly and outrageous ideas, and I gave them these handouts to help start them off.