Tag: journaling

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 10th March

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

What have we been up to this week? Character dynamics, recipes and spells for Zoom clubs and finishing junk journals for the school clubs!

Welcome parents, carers and young writers. Every week I will post here what we have been up to in writing clubs. The clubs are categorised by day so if your child attends a Tuesday club, for example, simply scroll down to Tuesday to see what we covered this week!

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: We looked at character dynamics this week – what are they, why are they important and tips for applying them to your story. Once we had discussed character dynamics and gone through the tips and advice, the group had several options for how to try them out. They could write a scene for their own on-going story which showed some character dynamics, or they could write a random scene to practice utilising them, or they could use one of the prompts offered to get going. We had some lovely examples from everyone and it was a great topic to explore!

Monday CJS Club: This week we finished off the wonderfully creative junk journals and the kids took them home. It was lovely to see some children already writing in theirs and I have thoroughly enjoyed seeing how vastly different they all are! A lot of fun was had making these and I hope the young writers make good use of them at home!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: Character dynamics for this group and it was their suggestion to look into the topic, so thank you for that! We had the same discussion and examples of what we mean by character dynamics and we also made progress on the first edit of our finished group story.

Tuesday Bransgore C of E Primary: More finishing and sending home of junk journals! Lots more pages added, using scrap and recycled paper, as well as envelopes, comic pages and so on. It’s been great seeing how inventive they’ve been with this!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: I gave this group a choice of looking at character dynamics or doing recipes/spells like the younger group are doing and they all chose to stick with character dynamics. There was a mixed response of new bits of writing and exploring character dynamics between the characters in their own stories. I’ve known this group since they were a younger group and it’s been amazing and exciting to see how much they have progressed and matured with their writing!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Group: The younger group have been fantastic, because most weeks they’ve been doing the same topics and work as the older groups and they’ve risen to the challenge every time! I asked them a few weeks ago for some ideas they would like to try and one was writing recipes to share. We decided to tackle this in a few ways. They could share real recipes, which meant including the ingredients and the method in the chat for everyone to see, and they could make up crazy, silly, disgusting recipes too! They obviously had a lot of fun with this! We then talked about how recipes are very similar to spells and potions and some of them moved on to that afterwards. A lot of fun!

Wednesday CJS Club: These guys also finished off their journals and took them home. An amazing variety of journals for all sorts of purposes, they should be very proud of the effort they have put in and the enthusiasm they have shown!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 3rd March

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

What did we get up to this week? More epistolary techniques for Zoom clubs and junk journal progress at school clubs!

Welcome parents, carers and young writers. Every week I will post here what we have been up to in writing clubs. The clubs are categorised by day so if your child attends a Tuesday club, for example, simply scroll down to Tuesday to see what we covered this week!

Monday

Monday mixed-age Zoom club – We continued our epistolary techniques topic this week. This time they were asked to write something using one of more epistolary techniques, except news reports, as we did those last week. They could write something to tie in with on-going stories, or they could respond to one of the following prompts:

Write a piece that uses one or more epistolary techniques.

PROMPTS:

  • Some parents are disagreeing about something their children have been accused of
  • A lost pet poster leads to some unsavoury accusations
  • A missing persons case is either helped or hindered by online speculation
  • Two people arrange to meet up after years apart and for dramatic reasons
  • A school project leads a student to discover something strange about their town
  • A famous band relives their best and worst moments
  • A family chat descends into chaos

Well done to everyone in the group – we had some fantastic responses!

Monday CJS club: This session the children started making their junk journals. I brought in lots of recycled materials to aid their creativity, such as cardboard, coloured paper, old birthday cards, magazines and comics, stickers and more. They loved the washi tape which is basically tape that’s very decorative! The binder rings were a big hit too. Here are the Monday junk journals so far!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 plus Zoom club: This group had the same epistolary technique prompts as the Monday club, and we had some wonderful responses including a chaotic family group chat and a band reliving some memorable moments during an interview!

Bransgore C of E Primary school club: More junk journal fun today! The journals have been created and decorated with various fun and recycled pages added! Here are some examples of their work.

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 plus Zoom club: This group also tackled the epistolary stories this time using letters, diaries, blog posts, emails and so on. We had some wonderful responses to the offered prompts including a wonderful mixed technique story which involved text communication between a mother and a son that built up a real sense of unease, then moved into a more traditional format to move the story forward! Excellent! We also had a very funny example of how parental group chats can descend into chaos! Well done everyone and thank you!

Wednesday 8-11 yr old Zoom club: The younger group also tackled the same topic and the same prompts and I keep reminding them that very often I am giving them the same work as the older groups and they are smashing it every time! They ought to be very proud of their attitude to learning new things. We had some wonderful pieces from this group too, including an argument via text messages and a news report that also involved some family members missing from a group chat. Brilliant stuff! Well done everyone.

Wednesday CJS Club: These guys were very excited to get started on their junk journals and like the other groups, particularly enjoyed the ring binders and the washi tape! I have been bowled over all week by the immense creativity the children have shown in creating their junk journals. No two are the same and each beautifully expresses the individuality and passions/hobbies etc of each child. We will be carrying on with our junk journals next week! Here are some examples from today.

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 24th February

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

What did we get up to this week? Different storytelling formats for Zoom clubs and junk journals for the school kids!

Welcome parents, carers and young writers. Every week I will post here what we have been up to in writing clubs. The clubs are categorised by day so if your child attends a Tuesday club, for example, simply scroll down to Tuesday to see what we covered this week!

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: It was lovely to be back together after a week off for half-term and we got stuck straight into a new topic. Different ways to tell stories! We all know about choosing a tense and a point of view, but what about other formats we can use to tell a story? Such as letters, diaries, blog posts, emails or news reports? We started with a chat about books we’ve read that fall under this category (epistolary stories…) and several members of the group enthusiastically talked about books they loved. I mentioned House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski and a few people suggested Holly Jackson’s Good Girl’s Guide To Murder series. Both great examples! We started today with two options. One: pick a photo prompt and write the news story to go with it
Two: write a news story to narrate a part of your own on-going story

We had some fantastic responses to this and everyone was happy to share, which was lovely. Well done everyone!

Monday CJS Club: For the next couple of weeks we are going to be making junk journals in school! We started by discussing the difference between a diary and a journal and talked about some journaling examples such as a nature journal, memory journal or travel journey. I explained that a junk journal is made from junk and recycled bits and bobs and can be anything they want it to be. We started today by first creating a ‘blind bag’ or ‘surprise bag’. This was partly to get them into a creative mood and get them thinking about possible themes for their journals. The surprise bags were a big hit and it was brilliant to see how differently they tackled them! You create a little envelope style ‘bag’ with a piece of paper and then decorate it however you like. As you can see from the examples below, they were very varied in design and purpose! Some children, for example, wanted to focus on nature, so as well as decorating the bag they also wrote tiny little poems and drew pictures to put inside. One child created a bag of games to play when bored! Another was designed as a ‘top secret’ bag full of secrets! Next week they will design their journal’s front and back cover and then can start adding fun pages over the next few weeks!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom club: A great session today with this group. A few of them chose to write a news report based on the picture prompts offered while another member of the group wanted to start a new story and decided to start the story with a newspaper report about a missing person. We have tackled article writing in the past and it was lovely to see them all remember things like an attention grabbing headline followed by a sub-title or lead, followed by the story itself. Fantastic!

Bransgore C of E School club: These guys were thrilled by the idea of making junk journals and jumped straight into making surprise bags first. We had a really varied selection of bags, including jokes, ideas, writing prompts and even dares! They also helped me put some finishing touches to my own junk journal which I plan to put writing prompts and ideas in, plus the little notes and drawings I often get given! Here are some examples of their surprise bags today.

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Club: The older Wednesday group got stuck into news report style stories today, using a selection of picture prompts to inspire ideas. We also discussed epistolary stories and what they involve, giving examples such as Holly Jackson’s Good Girl’s Guide To Murder series, House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski and more. We had some wonderful examples from everyone with some very enticing news stories relayed!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Club: For some of this group it was their first time discussing epistolary stories and learning how to craft a news report. We shared some top tips, such as creating an eye-catching headline and using clear and concise language. They all did so well! Most chose to use the picture prompts to help them craft a story and one child decided to use her own toys to create exciting news stories from! Well done everyone!

Wednesday CJS Club: These guys were excited to create and decorate their surprise or ‘blind’ bags in preparation for creating junk journals over the next few weeks. Lots of them already knew what a junk journal was and they all fantastic ideas for their bags today, such as dare bags, worry bags, bag to keep stickers in and kindness bags! Here are some examples.