Thumb Print Stories

This was a two-part exercise. In the first session last week, we just played with the ink pads, testing various effects and inventing characters. I advised the students to try and come up with four characters, all based on thumb prints, and to choose their favourite.

Then I asked them to make some notes about their character - name, age, sex, where did this character live, who were his/her enemies and friends, likes and dislikes, and finally to jot down the skeleton of a plot.

This week I gave out booklets and they started to write up their illustrated stories. It was a really quiet session because the children got very involved in their writing. They all said they'd finish the booklets off at home.

If you need to source ink pads, you can get them pretty cheaply here. I just bought a few new brown ones because they do for animals or humans. But your school may have some in anyway. If you're doing this activity at home and don't have an ink pad to hand, colouring the thumb with a felt tip or paint would work!

Till Rolls

I don't know what it is about rolls of paper that make them exciting to write or draw on, but every time I've used them, the children respond enthusiastically. Till rolls are cheap to buy, or you could roll up any paper for the purpose. Often rolls of backing paper get damaged in schools, so you could use them up this way, and I've also used wallpaper borders and the backs of old wallpaper rolls for the same purpose.

Today we each started a story with the same opening line, then, every few minutes, passed the story on to a new writer, asking the recipient to unroll the paper by only a few centimetres to peep at what's gone before. That way you end up with a disjointed but satisfyingly whacky complete story at the end of the session.

But there are lots of ways you could use a long strip of paper: unroll a long strip across the floor, then take a well-known story and have children work on a different sections at once; or see who can write the longest (tallest) tale. Or give two children the 'middle' event of a story and have them write the beginning and the ending simultaneously. There are lots of possibilities.

Creatures of the Night

For this you will need plastic googly eyes, or if you want to push the boat out, glass cabochons in the shape of eyes, which can be bought here. If you're using glass eyes, pre-sort them into pairs. Ideally too provide some black paper and metallic pens for drawing, though the children could work on any dark-coloured paper with light chalks or pastels. Basically you're going for a moonlight effect.

Ask the children to close their eyes and imagine they are outside at night, far away from civilisation and humans. They could imagine being in a jungle, a forest or out on the moors. Ask them to imagine what they can hear - rustling leaves, the wing, the pad of paws, bird calls - and what the air temperature is like on their skin. Ask what the surface under their feet is like, and what scents they can smell, and what the sky above looks like - can they see the moon, lit clouds, constellations? Ask how they are feeling about being out on their own in the dark wilderness. Then tell them they have seen some sort of animal coming towards them.

As the students open their eyes, give out the props. First suggest they draw their animal (it can be real or made-up), and then, when they're ready, they can write about it. I gave mine the choice of writing a description or putting the animal into a story. 

Some animals were friendly but most turned out to be pretty threatening!

Chains

To prepare for the session, cut up some paper strips. They don't have to be coloured; you could use white scrap paper if resources are stretched. 

You'll need enough glue sticks for one-between-two.

We got musical accompaniment to one of the stories!

Here's a totally frivolous activity for the end of term. The children worked in pairs and were asked to come up with a story chain where every link had one word written on it. It's an interesting dynamic, creating a narrative one word at a time, especially when it's two writers working together. 

I offered a small prize for the longest chain and another for the most entertaining story.

Half-and-half Stories

For this session, I told the children they were going to start a story, then swap and have someone else finish it off next week. As a stimulus, I put a selection of photos in an envelope: eight faces and four 'hazards'. They were asked to choose one or two characters and one hazard to work with. We discussed possibilities for the hazards, such as the fact that a snake can be venomous OR friendly and someone's much-loved pet. Then I asked them to focus on one character and, working very fast, fill in as many of the gaps on the Character Questions sheet as they could in five minutes. These were designed to give some flesh to the bones rather than form the plot of the story, though they could have been used for either.

This week they have all begun a story, and next week will complete someone else's.

One-line Fantasy Stories

Pop-up cards are easy to make. You can see some straightforward instructions here: How to make a pop-up card. 

You'll need to assemble a few things in advance: A3 card, a sheet for every child, plus scissors and glue and maybe some bits and pieces with which to decorate the finished story, like cheap gems or stick-on stars. You might like also to put together a sheet of images for them to cut out and colour, although many children will want to draw their own.

Show them the finished card, then give out the grid sheets, go through the format, and ask them to fill in as many blanks as they can. Then they can share their favourite(s) with the group.

Each child should choose their favourite, and then on the sheet of blank banners, copy out each part of their one-line story on a separate banner, so "there was a mad prince" on one, and "who ate a poisoned apple meant to kill him" on another and "and became sane and lived happily ever after" on the third. They can then cut out all the banners they've used and assemble them on the card as above, illustrating the story with three or more images.

This is a great activity for students who are a little bit scared of writing.

The Ugliest Dog in the World

Clubs have finished for the term, but here's a little quickie to lead up to Easter.

Ask the children to draw a really ugly dog. They must make it incredibly ugly - in fact it should be the ugliest dog in the world. They can label their picture if they like.

Then ask them: what is the dog's name? Where does it live? What does it eat? What is its worst habit? What kind of problems does it cause for the people around it? Does it have any friends? What does it smell of? Is it at all lovable, or is it entirely rubbish? Does it deserve a happy ending?

Then they can write their stories, or tell them off the cuff.

Invasion!

Here's an exercise taken straight from my book, Boost Creative Writing Confidence at KS2. To save time and faffing about, it might be best to glue the worms' eyes on yourself, especially if you only have a small group.

Bad-Pet Diary

We began this week by talking about the pets the children owned (or would like to own). Those children who did have pets talked about how naughty they could be, and those who didn't have a pet chatted about animals they'd seen misbehaving on funny clip shows like You've Been Framed. Everyone really enjoyed sharing their anecdotes so I didn't rush this part of the session.

Then I read them the Diary of a Useless Hamster and gave out the diary templates. The children then had 15 minutes to try and fill in an entry for every day. To spice things up I ran the task as a competition, with the funniest story winning a small prize.

In my experience, students who find creative writing daunting are more comfortable when the task is very structured and broken up -- and I've never met a child yet who doesn't like animals -- so this exercise should suit pretty much everyone.

The Making of Concertina Books

 This student is completely lost in her writing.

 And this student is extremely pleased with the way her story turned out.

I've posted lots of images to show you the range of ideas and styles the students went for. I was also delighted this week to read this article on the ITV News page talking about how creative writing and reading helped with children's mental health. Writing Club certainly feels like a happy, nurturing space when the children are sharing their ideas and creating their stories.