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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!

Secrets of the Egg

This session generated a lot of talk and interest because it's pretty practical. You will need hen's eggs (one between two children), bowls to crack the eggs into, and forks to burst the yolks, as well as a Secrets of the Egg sheet for every student. I treated my group to some quail's eggs too because they're so pretty - I boiled them first to make them more robust, but the shells are still fragile so they need to be handled carefully.

The warm-up exercise was supposed to be five lists - twenty seconds each to see how many items they could write down under a heading, and then a quick sharing of ideas. However, I only did four lists in the end because I decided there was no need to do the one about hidden things. 

After that I simply followed the lesson plan above. I didn't let the children share their ideas for each line until the whole poem was finished, but you could if you preferred. I was very pleased with the results which can be seen here. The children range from Y3 to Y6.

Teeny Weeny Books

This task requires a small investment, but I'd say it's worth it for the excitement it generates. Over Christmas, I bought some extremely tiny blank books off Ebay. They are not expensive (less than £4.50 for 12). I knew the students would love them.

Today I began the session by showing the children my own miniature books (top photo) which I filled in when I was about 14. Then the brief I gave them was to write a story about something very very small. The very very small thing has to be in danger at the start of the tale.

We discussed possible subjects for the story, ants and butterflies, koalas lost in the jungle and shrunk-down giraffes. One Y6 wanted to write about the tiny book itself, and another decided to write non-fiction about the lives of shrimp. They got their heads down and wrote and wrote. I don't yet have permission slips from the parents to feature the children on my blog, but you can see them on the school website here.

Only one word of caution: the books are moderately fragile, so the children mustn't bend the spines right back or pages will come away.

Postcards

We had a chilled final session, listening to Christmas music, playing Mad Libs and then writing seasonal postcards.

I was surprised to realise, the first time I used postcards as a format, just how unfamiliar many modern children were with the layout - they weren't sure where on the card you write the message or how you set out an address - so there's some educational value in simply looking at that. At the same time, for children who find writing a bit daunting, a postcard is fairly non-threatening because it's such a small space to fill.

And there are so many creative possibilities for this format. Pupils could write postcards to their favourite fictional character, or as their favourite fictional character. They could write postcards from another planet, or from a made-up world, or from the future, or from a point in history. They could imagine they were on their perfect holiday, or on the run from the police. 

As a teacher, you could mock up a postcard with a tantalising or intriguing message on it, perhaps with a bloody thumbprint or some other dramatic clue about its provenance - and then ask the children to imagine the character and story behind it.

Lots to think about over the holidays, and plenty of plans already for the spring term of Writing Club!

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.