Author: ChanAtkins

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 29th September

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This week we celebrated National Poetry Day!

Monday

Monday Zoom Group: We had a selection of poetry challenges today all from resources sent from National Poetry Day! The theme for National Poetry Day is ‘play’ and one of the things we started with was trying to make a group poem about play. Everyone added their thoughts on play to the chat, such as what they liked to play, used to play, favourite toys and games and so on. We then put this together into a poem and here it is:

Play is…

Cat and mouse,
playground,
the outdoors, a wild amusement park.
getting really competitive
with your sister while playing board games
films, friends,
parties,
books, board games
old toys, new toys
imaginary games
hide and seek,
Tall trees, grass stains
playing is
like being in another world
being on an adventure
like living in another world
until you have to go
swinging higher and higher
playing with your dog
and it getting a bit too boisterous
hiding behind a bush
knowing it’s just a game but it’s still terrifying!

Christchurch Junior School: We worked with two types of poetry today – one was the group poem, with children adding words and phrases about play to a large sheet of paper, and then we worked through the template poem ‘I Am..’ We had some great results from this and a mix of personal poems and poems from the POV of characters or creatures. Here is their group poem:

Play is Fun

Play is fun
monopoly and wordsearch
tag with friends
games with family
play is exciting
Roblox and video games
running in the playground
and hide and seek
play is sharing
games with pets
football and skipping
play is happiness

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom group: This group had a go at the group poem based on play and also worked their way through the National Poetry Day resources and challenges. Here is their group poem:

Playing Is…

Playing is like being disconnected from the real world
Play is a way of telling a story
Playing outside near the road
playing family,
making adverts for random objects,
manhunt, and running,
hiding and making dens
climbing trees in the forest
playing pirates, making stuff,
painting or moulding something utterly indescribable
with clay or mud
pretending a stick is a sword

Bransgore c of E Primary School: Bransgore did their template I Am poem last week so this week they tried two forms of found poetry AND helped to write a group poem about play. For found poetry we had cut up words and phrases to move around and create a poem from, and also a book title challenge. With this, you simply write down as many book titles as you can find around you then start circling any that have similar themes. Finally, construct a poem from the book titles and add more words if you need to. Here is their group poem about play:

I Play…

I play all day
rock, paper, scissors
tag, no returns
ball games – what goes up must come down
Lego – build it up and knock it down
with Duplo, and Frozen
and a solar-powered robot
I play Mums and Dads
and Teachers and Schools
and musical instruments to make a noise
video games make me feel it’s my happy time
and I feel relaxed, I feel fine
I feel free
this is my time

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: More National Poetry Day resources for this group today and also another group poem based on the play theme!

Life’s A Game To Me

Life’s a game to me
the swings on the playpark
down the street, climbing trees
sprinting and being stuck in the mud
shut in cupboards for hide and seek
playing in my daydreams.

Life’s a game to me
You’re chasing me
Now I am the chaser
I cannot catch you
Yet you keep running
Everything is different now

Life’s a game to me
I am your child
You are my mother
And we live in a tree
Sandboxes and mud pits
You’re bored now so we change once more

Life’s a game to me
Dolls and toys
Robots and dinosaurs
Lend me your ear
We’ll have a blast
Trust me here, lets make it last

Life’s a game to me
And when all’s said and done
I’ll write it down when I’m older
Engines powering huge machines
Generate your own world
Let your imagination make your story

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Group: This group also did a fab job with all the National Poetry Day challenges and here is their group poem!

Playing is fun

Acting, dancing, singing and laughing
I’ve got squishmallows to squish
I sleep with about 1000 cuddly toys
play schools with them
happy memories attached to them
got one at a fair
traded with friends
grandad helped me buy one from a gift shop
Playing with friends, playing with toy horses
LOL dolls and barbies
Football and sports
Sailing and bike riding
Whittling is fun
And mud kitchen and potions
Tent building
Gaming
Toys that have another use
Lego building
Dressing up and drawing
Playing is fun

Christchurch Junior School Wednesday Club: These guys did the template I Am poem today and lots chose to do it from the POV of a creature, which made for some deliciously dark poems! Here is their group poem:

Happiness is
Happiness is
running, jumping
outside games
tag and netball
sports like football
Happiness is
Roblox and 99 Nights
skipping and tennis
drawing and creating things
drama and theatre
happiness is
designing and drawing
board games and toys
card games indoors
fun times with friends

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 22nd September

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Finished articles and an ‘I Am’ Poem!

Monday

Monday Zoom group: Article writing and template ‘I Am’ poems on the go today with this group! We also had a fun book recommendation discussion!

Monday CJS: Finished articles today for this club. Here are the results of their hard work!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 plus Zoom group: This group finished their articles last week so were concentrating on poetry today – a mix of the ‘I Am…’ poetry template we’ve been working with and also narrative poetry. For the narrative or ‘storytelling’ poetry we had some prompts to choose from in order to form mini story/poems. Excellent work from all!

Bransgrore C of E Primary School: This group also finished their articles last week so today we were filling in the ‘I Am…’ poetry template. They really got into this, often asking if they could change a line or two of the ‘instructions’ that start each line off. Many did beautiful personal poems about who they are while some chose to do theirs from the POV of a fictional character or creature! Images below!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom group: A mix of template ‘I Am…’ poetry and narrative poetry prompts for this group. Also some progress on amazing Lakeside View stories!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom group: These guys finished template ‘I Am…’ poems last week so moved onto narrative poems today with some brilliant results!

Wednesday CJS Club: Articles were finished and some of them moved onto found poetry! They’ll do the template poetry next week. Here are a few examples of some wonderful found poetry. There are many ways to do found poetry but today we used cut up words and phrases to create poems and/or inspire ideas!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 15th September

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Article writing for everyone!

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: We carried on with the articles we started last week! Great work everyone.

Monday CJS Club: Fantastic to be back with this club today, with a mix of familiar faces and new ones. We got started on article writing! They could write real articles or made up ones, and could use picture prompts and headline suggestions to help them. They made a terrific start as you can see from the images, and we will finish these off next week!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: Lots of finished articles in this group today, well done everyone! We then moved onto a poetry prompt. ‘I Am…’ poetry templates were posted in the chat for students to respond to. The template involved three stanzas, each starting with a line such as ‘I am…’ or ‘I hope…’ The first ‘I am’ line is repeated at the start and end of each stanza. These can be filled in from a personal perspective or from the pov of a character! We had a mix of responses and all were absolutely wonderful!

Bransgore C of E Primary School: Today the children finished the articles they started last week and as you can see from the pictures, they are very eye catching! From lost dogs, and shoplifters, to portals to cake land and warring islands, these news stories are extremely imaginative! Well done everyone!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: A mix of finishing articles and trying the ‘I Am…’ poetry template from this group today. Lots of work shared and a bit more progress on the Lakeside View projects too! Fantastic!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Group: These guys finished their articles last week so today tried the ‘I Am’ poetry template, using their Lakeside View characters for the POV! These were excellent and are definitely going in the book!

Wednesday CJS Club: Lovely to be back with this bunch today! They started their mini articles and had fun deciding what their front page news would be! The images below show how hard they worked on these today!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 8th September

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Zoom clubs and Bransgore Primary School club were back this week!

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: We launched our new topic which is creating ‘newspapers’ from now until Christmas. The idea is we will do a different activity each week and gradually create a body of work we will then organise into a newspaper or magazine. We started with articles today and will carry this on next week. We discussed what is needed in a newspaper story, such as the heading, by-line, introductory paragraph, the main story, conclusion, and extras such as reader’s comments and pictures/photos. We had some possible headlines as prompts and there was also an option to tie the newspaper stories in with our on-going Lakeside View project!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: This group were introduced to the new topic and made a great start on articles today. Some wrote random articles on topics of their choice and some are linking theirs to Lakeside View. We will carry on with these next week!

Bransgore C of E Primary School Club: It was lovely to be back at Bransgore today! We kicked off our newspaper topic and everyone chose a topic and a headline, as well as some wonderful pictures to inspire the news reports. We had a couple finished, which is amazing, but most will be finished next week. Here are a few of them in progress!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: Also starting with article writing and picking from headline prompts or making their own. Some of the group decided to link their articles in with our Lakeside View project, which is brilliant!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Club: Introducing article writing to the younger group and with great results! Headlines and bylines were used, as well as great stories, most of which linked in with Lakeside View!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 14th July

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Story starters, writing prompts, poetry and town stories!

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: Today was our last session before the summer holidays so we had lots of options to choose from, including various visual prompts to respond to, story starters or just working on the town stories. Lovely work from all as always and a great discussion in general about writing and plotting!

Monday CJS Club: Progress on town stories with another starting to be typed up. We also had poetry and story prompts on offer for people to choose from. Great work from all!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: Same options for these guys but everyone chose to make progress with their town story which is great news, as we are aiming to publish this new book in October! This was also our last session until September.

Bransgore Primary School: Last session for these guys today and we had various options on offer to finish off the term. Well done to all and have a lovely summer holiday!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: Also the last session for these guys, everyone made progress on their town stories which are shaping up to be truly spectacular from this group! Well done guys and have a fantastic summer!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Club: Another last session before the summer holidays and though they had prompts to choose from, they all decided to work on their town stories. Some of these stories are linking up with each other too, which is really lovely! Well done to all and have a lovely summer!

Wednesday CJS Club: A celebratory last session with this wonderful group! We wrote a collaborative town project story by passing it around the class and everyone made progress with their own stories too. Have a wonderful summer you lovely lot!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 7th July

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Flash fiction prompts and progress on our ‘town stories’ project!

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: We started today with a flash fiction challenge. They had three options: writing their current town story in as least words as possible, writing a future story idea in as least words as possible or rewriting a well known tale or story in as least words as possible! After we had progress on town stories!

Monday CJS Club: We had flash fiction prompts also but most made progress with their town stories. We had another story typed up and finished and another one in the process of being typed up. Brilliant!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 plus Zoom club: We started with flash fiction prompts and these were excellent and mostly shortened versions of the bigger stories they are working on! Then we made progress on the town stories themselves.

Bransgore Primary After School Club: More progress on town stories with another one finished and typed up! These guys have shown a real enthusiasm and commitment to getting their stories done!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom club: Flash fiction prompts and progress on town stories in this group today! These stories are shaping up to be very special and I can’t wait to share them with you when this next book project is done! Well done everyone!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom club: We started with the flash fiction challenge and then moved on to writing more of our town stories.

Wednesday CJS Club: Flash fiction options for these guys too and more town stories finished and typed up! Excellent!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 30th June

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This week we published our anthology!!

The big news this week is the publication of our anthology, The World You Gave Us! It was written over the course of a year by young people who attend after school or Zoom writing clubs with Chasing Driftwood, and contains poetry, flash fiction, short stories and creative non-fiction. The children were so amazing in putting this together that we are already onto our next project which we hope to publish in October! Grab your copy of The World You Gave Us on the link below!

https://amzn.eu/d/dbFRecS

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: We started with poetry prompts today, aimed at creating poems based on their current ‘town project’ stories. They could also write any poem they wanted. We had various poetry starters to get ideas flowing and we also looked at how to write limericks. Great responses from everyone then onto making more progress on the town stories!

Monday CJS Club: They had the option of poetry prompts or carrying on with their town stories. Some are now starting to type their stories up on the laptop, which is amazing to see. This project is already coming together so nicely! Well done to all.

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: Great responses in this club to the poetry prompts. Most decided to write poems based on their town ideas. We are saving lots of these to add to the book! More progress on town stories too!

Bransgore Primary Club: Progress on town stories with one now completed, edited and typed up and another started on the laptop, while everyone else involved in the project wrote more of their stories.

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: Mostly working on town stories today but also one member of the group wrote the end of a long collaborative story started a year ago in this club! They have all taken turns writing it over a year and it is finally finished! Lots of editing to do now, but wow! What commitment!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Club: Half the group decided to concentrate on town story progress and half decided to write poems based on their stories or to go in their stories. These were fantastic!!

Wednesday CJS Club: There was a bit of poetry going on but most wanted to make more progress on their town stories. Another one was finished and started to be typed up, and a few more are creeping towards the finish line!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 23rd June

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What have we been up to this week? Folklore prompts for Zooms, mystery envelopes for schools and more progress on town stories!

It’s been a week of excitement and accomplishments at Chasing Driftwood this week! The proof copy of our anthology, The World You Gave Us arrived and was able to show all the children on Zoom and in schools. They all enjoyed having a look through and finding their contributions! We had several more town stories finished and handed in for our next writing project. The school children are enjoying typing theirs up on my laptop which has encouraged discussions about editing.

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: We had some folklore prompts on Zoom this week. Six different prompts based around various folklore tales including The Green Man, fairies and fairy rings, selkies and The Wild Hunt! Some used the prompts to write more for their town story, while others wrote a separate piece. Great progress on town stories too and lots of excitement about the anthology!

Monday CJS Club: The kids were really excited to see the anthology, hold it in their hands and see their work and their names in print! The book is published on 30th June but they were all able to have an early look. We made more progress on our town stories and a few more have been finished and typed up! Amazing!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: More responses to the folklore prompts with this group and yet more progress on town stories. Some of them wove the prompt ideas into their stories!

Bransgore Primary School club: They were very excited to look at the anthology and find their work in it! This really spurred them on to work on their town stories and we had a few more finished and handed in. Fantastic! For anyone finished I took in mystery envelopes full of writing prompts. The idea is to write a story based on what you find in your envelope.

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: Fantastic prompt responses, again, some using the folklore ideas to further their town stories and others writing a separate piece. Their town stories are all way past the half way mark now which is very exciting!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Club: More folklore prompts and a mixture of separate pieces and pieces that are woven into their existing town stories. Progress on everyone’s stories! Fantastic!

Wednesday CJS Club: These guys were very excited to see their work in the anthology and also made progress on their town stories, with a few more being finished and typed up! A few who had finished their stories had a go with the mystery envelopes.

See you next week!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 16th June

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What did we get up to this week?? More work on our collaborative project and out anthology is ready to preorder!!

Exciting times at Chasing Driftwood Writing Group, as an anthology over a year in the making is finally available to preorder! The World You Gave Us is an anthology of poetry, flash fiction, short stories and creative non-fiction written entirely by young people who attend our clubs. On the 30th June it will be published in both ebook and paperback by our own imprint Chasing Driftwood Books and will be available across multiple platforms. I’ll share the relevant links next week when the Amazon paperback version has been approved.

our anthology!

A huge congratulation to all the young people who took part!

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: This week we looked at tension; what it is, why its important and how to build it into our stories, We discussed various tips on creating tension, such as using short, sharp sentences, paying attention to sensory information and using the character’s body language, and we had tension themed prompts to respond to. Great work from all and further progress on all the town stories!

Monday CJS Club: Mostly progress on town stories today with a few actually finished! Amazing! Well done everyone. We also had a chat about tension and discussed the techniques we can use to add tension to our stories.

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom club: This group also had the tension tips followed by the tension prompts and we also had great progress on all the town stories. Well done to all!

Bransgore Primary School: Today we discussed how to add tension to stories and made more progress with our town stories with a few finished! Great work!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: The same discussion on adding tension to scenes, tension themed prompts to choose from, followed by progress on our town stories. Great work from all. Their on-going collaborative story is also nearly finished!!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Group: These guys did really well responding to the tension techniques and the prompts combined! Lots of progress!

Wednesday CJS Club: This group also discussed how to add tension to stories and continued to make progress with their town project. We also have a few finished stories in this group now!!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 9th June

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Lots of progress on our town project!

This week I’m just going to do one post for all the clubs as they’ve all covered the exact same prompts plus made progress on their town stories! Apologies to Bransgore Primary School writing club however as I had to cancel due to a family emergency.

The prompt choices this week were:

  • There’s something different about this place. Something hard to describe or fathom…
  • Did the world turn upside down one day? Got all shaken up and out came this place?
  • What strange places our lives can carry us to…. What dark passages…
  • How can such a dark and dangerous place be so beautiful?
  • A day in Lakeside View begins like any other… The sun rises…

As usual we had a lovely mix of responses. Some children used the prompts for poetry or flash fiction, and some used them to further their town project stories.

Everyone made progress on their stories too. We have reached the ‘weary’ stage with a few of them but this had been a great talking point within the clubs. Everyone experiences ‘writers block’ at some point, and getting ‘stuck’ in a story is a big part of that. There is also the temptation to start a new story whenever a story gets stuck. We’ve managed to get a few stuck stories past their humps though this week and we are determined to keep them all going!

Thanks everyone, see you next week!