Tag: poetry

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C19th January

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Super powers writing prompt plus planning for the Bournemouth Writing Festival children’s writing competition!

Monday

Monday CJS Club: Today this group had a choice of a superpowers writing prompt – they could respond with poetry, story or comic strip OR they could start making plans for a story or poem for Bournemouth Writing Festival’s children’s writing competition. The theme this year is ‘every dog deserves a home’ and the festival have teamed up with Waggy Tails dog rescue to launch the competition. A lot of the CJS children were excited to enter this and as well as some wonderful responses to the super power prompt, we had some rescue dog themed stories planned and even started! Here are a few pictures.

Tuesday

11 Plus Zoom Group: More ‘every day quick writes’ prompts for this group today. They could choose from the following:

  • What is one historical event you wish you could go back and witness?
  • What advice would you give to younger aspiring writers?
  • What’s one thing you are excited about today?
  • What would you say if you could ask your ancestors a question?
  • Write/draw about a character who discovers they have super-powers

Bransgore C of E Primary School: These guys also had a choice of the superpowers prompt OR planning/writing a story or poem for the Bournemouth Writing Festival children’s writing competition. We even had some wonderful poems finished and handed in within the session!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: The same array of prompts for these guys today plus lots of progress on some of their longer, on-going stories. Wonderful work from this talented bunch!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Group: This group seem to be really embracing the weekly prompts and we’ve had a lovely mix of creative non-fiction answers and poetry and stories! We also had another assignment handed in on our optional theme ‘broken’. Great work from all!

Wednesday CJS Club: The kids enjoyed experimenting with the feather pen and pot of ink I took in. The school clubs have all been very intrigued with this old-fashioned method of penmanship this week! They also got stuck into the prompts and/or decided to write stories/poems for the Bournemouth Writing Festival competition!

Thursday

Burton C of E Primary School: A choice between writing prompts about super-powers or entering the Bournemouth Writing Festival dog-themed competition! We also enjoyed experimenting with the ink and feather pen!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 13th January

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Making weekly writing books and responding to prompts!

Monday

Monday CJS Club: Great to be back with the CJS Monday club after the Christmas break. We kicked off by making our new weekly writing books. I was really impressed with this group as they did not have a session last week which meant making the books AND responding to our first prompt, what would you do, where would you go if you were invisible? These guys did so well and we had a wonderful response to the prompt with a mixture of stories, creative non-fiction and even poetry! Here are some pictures of the books they’ve made to write in this term.

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: Today we discussed the benefits of using writing tools such as pen and paper over screens, and then responded to another choice of writing prompts. These prompts can be responded to any way they like whether it’s non-fiction or fiction, poetry or short story. The prompts for Zoom groups this week were:

If today was a colour what colour would it be and why?

What would you do if you knew there would be no consequence?

What is something that you will never understand?

Write about a song that is linked to a special memory

Bransgore C of E Primary: Lovely to be back with these guys today! They also enjoyed making their new writing books and responding to the invisibility prompt! Here are some pictures of their books.

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: We also had a discussion about writing tools and the benefits of handwriting, then responded to our next set of prompts! Great work from all!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Group: Another discussion about writing tools and the cognitive benefits of using pen and paper, followed by more wonderful responses to the prompts.

CJS Wednesday Club: These guys made their writing books last week so today we could get stuck into our first writing prompt! What would you do, and where would you go if you were invisible? What an impressive response from everyone! Mostly poems, which was lovely, but also some stories on the go. Fantastic!

Thursday

Burton C of E Primary: This group also made their writing books last week so today we could fully focus on our first prompt about the power of invisibility. We had a lovely mix of poems about invisibility, stories, non-fiction and comic strips! Lovely work from everyone, well done!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 15th December

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Wintry and Christmas themed prompts on Zoom and making poetic bookmarks in school!

It’s been a shorter and quieter week for me without Burton or Bransgore school clubs running, but this is what we got up to on Zoom and at CJS!

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: A host of Christmas and wintry themed prompts for all the Zoom kids to choose from this week and the ‘write a Christmas horror story’ was by far the most popular prompt! Lovely work from this group as always and more progress on their long on-going stories.

CJS Monday Club: A small group as lots were busy carol singing, but the rest of us got busy making Christmas gifts in the form of bookmarks with poems written on! Haiku was the suggested poem due to its small size but they could do anything they liked and we had some wonderful creations!

Tuesday

11 Plus Zoom Group: The horror prompt was again very popular in this group although we did have one member choose the winter solstice themed prompt. They were all lovely pieces!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: A lovely selection of prompts chosen to respond to today and again, the horror themed option was popular!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Group: More responding to Christmas themed prompts and again, more progress on on-going projects!

Wednesday CJS Club: This group got to make their poetic bookmarks today and what a beautiful selection of poems were created! Absolutely lovely!

Have a lovely Christmas break everyone and see you on 2026!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 1st December

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Poetry in schools and responding to wintry images on Zoom!

Monday

Monday Zoom Group: Today we had a selection of wintry themed landscape images to respond to in the chat. They could respond in any way they liked, with poetry, flash fiction, a non-fiction descriptive piece or a story! The images went down quiet well with some wonderful story ideas forming!

Monday CJS Club: This group had a poetry prompt today, which involved writing a 5 line poem about memories of a favourite toy. They could have a Christmas vibe if they liked! They also got on with more work in their newspapers!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: This group had the same wintry landscape images to respond to

Bransgore C of E Primary: As we are in the library for this club we had a slightly different poetry prompt. They had to use the last line of any book and use it to write a poem!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: Fantastic responses to the wintry landscape prompts this week, with some new pieces written as well as some using the images to tie in with their on-going projects!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Group: this group also gave a fantastic response to the images. Everyone wrote a brand new piece and many of them decided these could grow into bigger stories they want to continue with next week!

Wednesday CJS Club: We did some poetry on this club today, using the same 5 line poetry prompt about a favourite toy or memory of a toy. This went really well and lots of them lined up at the end to share their poems!

Thursday

Burton C of E Primary School: This week we had a small break from the on-going mini newspapers and wandered into the school library. Everyone had to find a last line from any book and then use that to write a poem, story or comic strip from! This went really well. Here are some pictures from last week of their newspapers so far!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 20th October

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Creepy writing prompts and word-throwing!

Monday

Monday Zoom Club: Lots of spooky writing prompts on offer today including ‘word-throwing’ from a story starter and lots of’ What If…’ scenarios. They also made progress with their Lakeside View stories!

Monday CJS Club: We did an activity as a group, ‘word-throwing’ with a story starter. The story starter was ‘I stepped into the darkness and…’ which was then followed by me calling out a random word every minute. The children can use the word, change the word slightly or ignore the word. We had such fantastic results from this session and every singe piece written fits perfectly into the Lakeside View project!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom group: This group mostly went for the ‘What If…’ scenarios which included ‘What if the darkness came and never left?’ and ‘What if you put on a mask for halloween and it would not come off?’ The results were suitably creepy from all!

Bransgore C of E Primary School Club: This group had the story starter and word-throwing activity and it went so well! Every single child wrote something suitable for the Lakeside View project and every single child was so proud of their work they wanted to stand and read it out! I was amazed by the amount written too!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: A perfectly creepy mix of responses to the Halloween themed prompts from these guys plus one Lakeside View story finished and another one very close to the end!

Wednesday 8-11 Group Zoom Group: These guys responded to the prompts beautifully and some also helped each other construct spooky spells and potions with some lively suggestions in the chat!

Wednesday CJS Club: Another wonderful word-throwing session! This group were also incredibly proud of their spooky writing and all of them are going in the Lakeside View book1

Have a great half-term everyone!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 6th October

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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 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 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 21st May

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What did we get up to this week?

There was no Monday clubs this week due to it being a bank holiday. There was also no club at Bransgore school due to an inset day there. Here is what the rest of us got up to!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 plus Zoom group: For this session, we discussed our group story which is now finished and has has been edited a few times. We discussed changing a bit towards the end that didn’t quite work and once that is done, the story can be added to the anthology all the groups have been working on. Today we also had a writing prompt: From a window. For this, they could write a fictional or non-fiction story, or a poem, describing a view from a window. We also discussed my new idea for another collaborative writing project all the groups will get involved in and this group were really enthusiastic about it!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 plus Zoom group: Similar to the above, we had some discussion over their group story which is drawing to an end but will need editing when finished. I set them the From a Window prompt and also explained my new idea for a short story collection.

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom group: This group had the same prompt and most of them decided to respond to that. They could also carry on with ongoing stories or poems too, and a few of them went with that option. They also seemed keen on my new idea for a big writing project!

Wednesday CJS Club: Today I told the group about my new idea and they had plenty of questions about how it will work. We set the goal for this term of each creating a character and working towards a short story for that character. We talked about simple and complex character bios and everyone started creating one. Towards the end some of them pretended to be their characters and were interviewed by the rest of us!

See you next week where we will have more news on the anthology AND the new book idea!