Tag: writing tips

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C 26th January

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Story planning with post-it notes in school and ‘quick everyday writes’ prompts for Zoom! Plus our first ‘Dark Club’ Zoom session!

Monday

CJS Monday Club: Today this group could either carry on any stories/poems started in the last few weeks from our ‘quick everyday writes’ prompts or they could make progress with their rescue dog stories for the Bournemouth Writing Festival competition. But we started with a quick story planning activity which really got them thinking about how to structure and plan a story. Everyone had six post-it notes but had to put three aside to start with. On three they had to write the beginning, middle and end of a story in quick note form. We talked about how helpful The Three Act Structure is in story planning. For example, Act 1 is the beginning of the story where you introduce a character and their world. Act 2 is the middle of the story where you make something happen and give the character a problem they cannot ignore. Act 3 is the end of the story where you resolve the problem. After everyone had written three notes, I then showed them how to interject three extra notes to provide more detail. We had some wonderful results from this. many of them said they now knew how to write their story better and many started stories because of the activity! Here are a few of their memo-note story plans:

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: These guys had the following prompts to discuss and respond to:

  • Write about the happiest sound in the world
  • Why do you write? How do you feel when you write?
  • What does it feel like to have a head full of ideas?
  • What is the one thing you always wish you were doing?

Some of them were also interested in the memo note planning technique I’m showing the school clubs this week so I talked them through that.

Bransgore C of E Primary School: These guys planned their stories today using the memo note technique, first coming up with three basic points of a story, start, middle and end, and then adding more detail. Fantastic! Here are a few of their plans:

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Group: This group had the writing prompt choices to go through and we also ran through the memo note planning technique. There was progress made on on-going projects too!

Wednesday 8-11 Group: The younger group seem to be really enjoying the quick writing prompts each week, with most of them doing more than one each time! We also had a look at the memo note planning technique and one member of the group decided to use this to plan her next story!

Wednesday CJS Group: With this group we discussed the memo note planning technique and everyone had a go at planning a story this way. Lots of them then went back to stories for the Bournemouth Writing Festival competition! Here are a few of their story plans:

Thursday

January ‘Dark’ club Session: This is a new monthly Zoom club for young writers interested in the darker genres such as horror, sci-fi, fantasy, crime, dystopia and post-apocalyptic. We will be meeting once a month at the end of the month to explore these genres and look at some famous authors who wrote in them. The aim is to learn more about the darker genres of writing and make progress with stories! Our first session went really well. We discussed various genres and what readers might expect from them, we looked at writing advice from Ray Bradbury of Fahrenheit 451 and tried his activity for writing a dark story which involves writing a list of ten things you love and ten things you hate then using some of that passion in a story. It was great fun and I am looking forward to the next one!

Burton C of E Primary School: Today at Burton I introduced the memo note story planning technique and as you can see from the photos below they enjoyed having a go at this! Some great story ideas evolved from the planning and some ongoing stories got a boost too. We also enjoyed using the feather and ink pen set, plus the fountain pen and my laptop to write with! Well done everyone, excellent work!

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 5th January

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Welcome back and happy new year!

Not all of out writing clubs were back yet this week but here’s what we kicked off with the ones who were…

Tuesday

11 Plus Zoom Group: We kicked off our new topic this week which is ‘everyday quick writing’. What is it, what does it involve and why is it important? After discussing what quick everyday writing is (essentially small bursts of routine writing in any style or format) we had four writing prompts to choose from. The prompts were creative non-fiction but they could choose to respond with fiction if they wanted and we had a lovely mix of both!

Wednesday

11 Plus Zoom Group: This group also started the everyday quick writing topic and again, we had a wonderful mix of responses to prompts which were creative non-fiction, or fiction. A wonderful start to a new term!

8-11 Zoom Group: really lovely work from the younger group today. They seemed really pleased with the topic and again, a lovely mix of creative non-fiction and fiction responses were written! fantastic!

CJS Wednesday club: Wonderful to be back with this group today and they are also doing the quick everyday writing topic. The only difference was they had to make their writing books first! They could choose their covers and there were pages of paper on offer including, lined, plain, coloured and squared. They had treasury tags to hold all the pages together and used cut up words and phrases to decorate their covers. They then started allocating pages for different things such as ideas, doodles, or characters… here are a few examples of their books so far!

Thursday

Burton C of E Primary School: Finished the week off with these guys and they were all very keen to make their new writing books. We will start writing in them next week! Here are a few of their books so far…

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 8th December

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Character games on Zoom and a mix of Christmas writing and crafts at schools!

Monday

Monday 11 Plus Zoom Group: Today the challenge was everyone had to create a character and add a bio for them into the chat. We then challenged ourselves to write a ‘blind’ story, (in other words, we all write something without knowing what the others had written and then paste it all together) using these characters This was a lot of fun and the story actually made sense!

Monday CJS Club: Various Christmas themed activities were on offer today, including a host of Christmas story starters, mini books they could do anything they liked with and lots of Christmassy images and phrases to create a story or poem from! They had a lot of (excitable!) fun putting various books and ideas together. I forgot to take photos but I wish I had as they were all amazing!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom group: Only a small group today but we had a lot of fun with characters too. We each created one and put them in the chat. They could be written bios or pictures. We then spun a wheel and all got allocated one randomly which we had to write something in response to. This was so much fun and although it felt a little weird writing for someone else’s character for a bit, it then flowed beautifully and some great pieces were created!

Bransgore C of E Primary School Club: Our last session with this group before Christmas so they were busy making Christmas themed bookmarks with Christmas themed poems written on them to take home as a gift for a loved one. A host of beautiful bookmarks were created!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: More character fun in this session and lots of them joined in to add a host of wacky characters to the chat. We then allocated them randomly and had a lot of fun responding with pieces of writing!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Group: Sam activity for this group and again, a lot of fun was hat! Some brilliant characters were put into the chat, including my favourite, ‘Bobeter’ the chicken! Some highly amusing mini stories were written for these eclectic characters!

Wednesday CJS Club: More crafty Christmassy activities and it’s fair to say everyone in this group went mad for the mini books and the images and words I’d brought in! I did remember to take photos so check them out below to see what wonderful writing and creativity was displayed. From stories, to poems, to recipe books, comics, adverts and more! Absolutely brilliant!

Thursday

Burton C of E Primary School: Our last session here before Christmas so this group were writing their Christmas poems and decorating their bookmarks! Fantastic effort. See you all soon!

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 24th November

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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 17th November

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Poetry and a brand new school club starts!

Monday

Monday Zoom Group: Today we had three poetry prompts to choose from:

Poetry activity 1:

Personification poetry:

Write a poem of any style, rhyming or non-rhyming from the POV of an object, any object!

Poetry activity 2:

Would you rather poem:

I’d rather… (be writing)

I’d rather not… (tell you what I’m thinking)

I’d rather be happy

I’d rather not be stuck in traffic

Poetry activity 3:

Line 1: Name an item with a describing word (eg old red scooter)

Line 2: tell us something it did or does (whizzed down the hill, got me to school

etc

Line 3: add a sensory detail (eg, creaky wheels, shiny paint, flaking paint, wind in your hair etc)

Line 4: add a thought, a wish or a memory (I remember crashing it into a wall, I wish I still had it ect)

Line 5: end with a feeling or a surprise twist (it wasn’t my scooter, I feel stranded without it etc)

For this group, all decided to write a personification poem which beautifully summed up everything we have been exploring for the last few sessions. They then returned to their Lakeside View stories!

Monday CJS Club: This group had a go at either a personification poem or a I would rather/rather not poem, with most of them opting for the personification and very much enjoying the rest of the group trying to guess what they were!

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: The three poetry activity prompts on offer for this group too and some went for the I’d Rather, I’d Rather Not poem, while others tackled personification. Great work!

Bransgore C of E Primary School: These guys had a go at the I’d Rather, I’d Rather Not poem and they all did so well. We had lots of food based poems, lots of personal ones, silly made up ones and some fantastic rhyming ones! Well done everyone!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: Wonderful results from this group with the poetry choices this week. All went for the personification poem, with some choosing objects used by characters in their on-going stories!

Wednesday 8-11 Zoom Group: We had a nice mix in this group and for the first time two of the group had a go at the template poem activity choosing. These were really good with parts based on truth and parts on fiction!

Thursday

Burton C of E Primary School: I was very excited to start a new after school club today at Burton Primary! We are nearly full already which is fantastic! We only have four sessions for Christmas and for three of those we are making mini newspapers! The group got stuck in today, with some doing comic books, while others were writing mini articles, creating adverts and writing stories! A great start!

Children’s Writing Clubs W/C Nov 3rd

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This week we’ve looked at personification, specifically when describing landscapes!

Monday

Monday Zoom Group: We started with reminding ourselves what personification is and had some examples of it being used specifically when describing landscapes. The children then had a go at writing their own descriptive landscape piece using personification techniques to really bring it alive! The results were amazing and they then got back to their ongoing stories for the Lakeside View project!

There was no CJS Monday club this week due to a staff day.

Tuesday

Tuesday 11 Plus Zoom Group: We also discussed personification and used the examples and prompts to practice our skills. Amazing responses from everyone, well done!

Bransgore C of E School: Personification was a new concept for the youngest children in this group but they rose to the challenge beautifully and wrote some fantastic sentences! The results from everyone were of a very high standard and again we had lots of children lining up wanting to share their descriptive pieces!

Wednesday

Wednesday 11 Plus Group: Amazing results in this group from the personification prompt and discussion. Again, everyone was super proud of their efforts and really noticed the difference it made to their writing! More progress on Lakeside View stories too!

Wednesday 8-11 Group: Personification was a new concept for some of the younger group and again they really rose to the challenge! I was very impressed with the personification sentences, descriptions and poems they all came up with!

Wednesday CJS Club: more fun with personification in landscapes with these guys and some stunning examples were written too! Some of the younger ones learnt about the technique for the first time and were really proud when they mastered it!

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!