recycling

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!

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.