Joke Books

Writing Club is mainly about having fun writing, and that's what today's session focussed on. Of course jokes contain puns and wordplay, some of which is pretty sophisticated, and litany-structures ("knock knock") and riddles, all of which expand pupils' experience of language. But mainly we were having a laugh.

You could just ask the children to use joke books off the library shelves, or google 'jokes for kids' (the FOR KIDS is obviously very important), however I also gave out some sheets of clean jokes I'd downloaded off the internet. The children shared jokes they already knew, and some of them made up their own jokes and riddles on the spot.

I had some cheap notebooks that they used, but it's easy for children to make their own books if you have a long-arm stapler handy.

Script for an Advert

I don't claim this as original, but it's certainly an enjoyable and lively activity. We only have a 45 minute slot in my after-school club, but it's an idea you could expand to fill several lessons with upper KS2, really drilling down into the way advertisements are structured across various media.

As preparation, I took some fun-size Cosmic Whips (supermarket's own-brand Milky Ways) and wrapped them individually in plain paper. I gave out one to each child - though one between two would be fine, or even one per small group if you're on a very tight budget. 

The students then received the sheet above and I told them they were in charge of launching a new snack bar onto the market. They had to quickly decide on a name and brand image for their bar, using the prompts on the sheet, then when they were ready, script a YouTube or TV advert for the product. 

Those who wanted to performed their scripts and we videoed them, too.

I Met a Dog Called

Last week we looked at Michael Rosen's 'Down Behind the Dustbins' and then wrote our own verses, which we performed to the rest of the group. We haven't done much on rhyming poetry, so it was good to focus on the sounds of words.

The Best Cabbage Lines

I only had seven children today, but they wrote marvellous descriptions of the cabbages and enjoyed pulling them apart. The snippets above are some of the best lines.