Tag: Newspapers

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 24th November

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

Unreliable narrators on Zoom and creating our own adverts in school clubs!

Monday

Monday 11 Plus Zoom Group: This week via Zoom we are looking at unreliable narrators. What is an unreliable narrator, what different types of unreliable narrator exist in fiction and why they are sometimes used. We then set some writing prompts to explore the mindset of unreliable narrators! A great response from the first club of the week with members choosing from the list of prompts and exploring their own unreliable narrator. We also discussed how they have used unreliable narrators before without perhaps realising it!

CJS Monday Club: In school clubs this week we are trying to finish off the newspapers they have been working on since September. This week we are creating and designing our own adverts. It could be for something that already exists or something completely made up! We had a lovely selection of ads from them. Have a look at a few examples below!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 plus Zoom Group: more work on unreliable narrators for this group. Some great pieces were written, including the POV of a cat who witnesses a murder, and the POV of a very young child in danger. Great work!

Bransgore C of E Primary School Club: this group also enjoyed creating their own adverts for their newspapers today as you can see from the selection below!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom group: More work on unreliable narrators. What is an unreliable narrator and how can we spot one? The group did a great job responding to the prompts and we also realised how many of them have ongoing stories with unreliable narrators at the helm! There was one particularly clever and chilling piece written from the POV of a young child who does not realise she has witnessed a crime. Truly chilling!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Group: We added a Christmassy vibe to the unreliable narrator topic and the younger group could choose between arguing elves, a pet who hears all the Christmas secrets and arguments among siblings among other things. They did a great job responding to the topic!

Wednesday CJS Club: Here is another fun selection of adverts created this week!

Thursday

Burton C of E Primary School: Only the second session with these guys and they have been doing a fantastic job creating mini newspapers/magazine. We’ve got ongoing comic book strips, mini news articles, adverts, puzzle pages, stories, poems and even songs among their work so far! Absolutely brilliant! I’ll post some examples next week.

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 6th October

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

Newspaper covers for school clubs, creating eerie and unsettling scenes for Zoom!

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: Today we were looking at how you can create horror and tension by turning everyday and ordinarily pleasant scenes into something more unsettling and uneasy… We went through some tips such as using objects, using characters, using dialogue and using the senses to make a pleasant scene feel creepy. We had some prompts to get us started and the results were amazing! Well done all!

Monday CJS Club: Last week they worked so hard on their template poems that today they deserved a more relaxed and creative session. They were all given their newspaper covers and could decorate and design them any way they liked. I brought in pictures and cut out words and phrases to help inspire front covers in a magazine or newspaper style. We also used teabags to make the newspapers look old! These were amazing and it was a really fun session with all the children fully engaged and excited about putting their newspapers together.

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom group: This group also had the tips on changing an ordinary scene into one that scares us and chose from the prompts, coming up with some seriously unsettling pieces! Well done everyone!

Bransgore C of E Primary School Club: This group got to design and decorate their newspaper/magazine covers today and had great fun in doing so. Here are some examples of their work so far.

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom group: This group had great fun with the making a normal scene creepy task and prompts! The idea is to create a very ordinary scene such as a birthday party, or watching Tv, or walking the dog, and then use either objects, characters, dialogue or the senses to create an uneasy and unsettling atmosphere. These guys were fantastic at doing just that!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Group: The younger group never shy away from a challenge and they also had the same tips and prompts and could choose whether to create a funny or scary scene using the very everyday setting/scenario. Their responses were also wonderful!

Wednesday CJS Club: These guys were excited to get stuck into decorating and designing their ongoing newspapers today and as you can see, the results are amazing!!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 15th September

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

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!