Fiddly fingers

I use crafts, and cross-stitch to relax.  Husband and I like to watch an hour of television together each evening before bed, usually a box-set of some description.  I personally love this little ritual.  With a busy family it would be all too easy to pass like ships in the night, but we make sure we spend at least an hour in each other’s company at the end of each day.  However, I am a lady who likes to multi-task, and if I don’t have anything to do with my hands I get such fidgety fingers that I end up biting my nails!  

This is where certain crafts come into their own – these crafts can’t involve too many resources (as the dog would knock them out of my lap) and also can’t require too much in the way of concentration, as I do need to be able to follow along with the show.  The best crafts for the job are things like latch-hook rug-making or rag-rugging, crochet, knitting or cross-stitch.

You’ll see (I hope, as long as I get on and write them!) a few more blog posts in the next few days about things that I’ve been making recently.  In December I finished a crochet blanket, then I completed this cross-stitch over Christmas, and this last week I’ve been knitting a snake with the leftover wool from the crochet blanket.  I’ll give more information on my next project once I have posted about the ones I’ve completed – but before I can do that, I need to have a thorough sort out of my craft things in “The Railway Room” as I can’t get to anything at the moment because it’s so higgledy-piggledy, and there are a few minor sewing repairs to do in the meantime, to keep my fiddly fingers busy.

What do you do to keep your fingers busy when you’re watching TV?

Adventures this month

  • Plymouth Christmas market (we won’t bother with this one again!)
  • Mevagissey (twice)
  • Jools Holland concert
  • Getting ready for Christmas

 

 

How are we doing?


Are we feeling playful?

In all honesty – not really at the moment!  I’m full of cold with a horrible sore throat and a cough which means I’m not sleeping.  While I can manage pretty well on a bad night’s sleep, I’m not doing so well with four nights on hardly any sleep.

However, Christmas is coming, and that does bring out the playful side in some people.  My 12 year-old daughter absolutely loves the magic of Christmas – she is making decorations, getting Secret Santa gifts, decorating her own tree in her bedroom, planning how to decorate a Yule Log, watching Christmas movies and generally showing the rest of us how it ought to be done if only we had the energy.  I’m sure once I’ve caught up on some sleep and fought off this virus I’ll be a bit more on board.

The work Christmas party

I had a bit of an odd work Christmas party.  First off, let me tell you that I LOVE a work ‘do’.  My husband keeps himself to himself and we don’t tend to go “out out” very much at all apart from the odd family meal or a music event or theatre – so I take the opportunity to dress up a bit and have a good time.  As a teacher, these work events tended to happen at Christmas and at the end of the Summer term.  With my new job, where I am working on my own almost all the time, working one-to-one with clients or visiting schools, it felt even more important to get together with the team and get to know the others better.  It was a bit disappointing, therefore, to find that I was the only one from my team due to attend.  The first bit of fun was that I turned up on the wrong night!  This was entirely my fault, I’d managed to write the incorrect date in two different calendars, even though the email had the correct date!  Because I wasn’t expecting to know many people, it took me a moment to realise that in fact I didn’t recognise ANYBODY, and when I asked, I found that this was in fact the “South West Chimney Sweep” Christmas party – though they did invite me to join them!  Fast forward to the next evening and attempt number two.  Not only nobody from my team, but in fact nobody else from our entire side of the organisation.  Luckily I didn’t stay Billy No-Mates for very long, as some friendly folk took pity on me and invited me to move my chair and come and join them, and I did have a lovely evening (and a LOT to eat!).  My team did make up for it slightly by having tinsel crowns and Christmas music playing at our quarterly team meeting this week.

Thinking of others

To be honest, one more thing is making me hesitate a bit more about the Christmas decadence this year too.  I have come across a family of five who have recently been made homeless.  No fault of theirs.  The landlord wants to sell so issued a Section 21 eviction notice, but there just aren’t enough properties for locals to rent in Cornwall because of the massive number of second homes, summer rentals and air b and bs here, so they couldn’t find anywhere.  They were advised that the council couldn’t help them until they were actually homeless and they should wait until the bailiffs came.  So now that’s happened, and they are in emergency accommodation in a room in a Travelodge, presumably over Christmas, with nowhere to store or prepare food – so having to eat out (and into their savings) to feed the family.  I just think it’s so awful that families are having to face this, and feel so lucky.  It’s making me more determined to think of ways to look after others this Christmas.

Working for Christmas

Another thing that will make Christmas a bit different this year, is that it’s the first time in quite a while that my husband will be working over Christmas.  Of course, sick people people don’t stop being sick over Christmas (though I believe they try to get as many of them home to spend time with family as possible), and doctors and nurses still need to be at work in hospital.  C will be on-call and on the ward in the run up to Christmas, and with a lot more work to cover, as the junior doctors have called a strike that week, and will then be working on Christmas Day – before having a few days off.  Christmas Dinner and gift opening will wait until he gets home.  We will also be hosting my father-in-law, who will be facing his first Christmas since his wife died in January (having taken ill last Christmas Day / Boxing Day).  

A quiet Christmas

With all this going on, I think Christmas this year is going to be a low-key, simple affair – plenty of board games, movies and short walks, and I’m planning to take Father-in-law to the Nine Carols and Lessons at Truro Cathedral too, which should be quite lovely.

So how are you feeling this December?  What’s going on with you?  Will you be going to a busy or quiet Christmas?  Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Are you looking for things to do in lockdown? We’re now a year into the Covid crisis and our ideas bucket might be getting a little empty.  Every day feels like the Groundhog and you can’t wait for schools to go back? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.

This Spring feels very strange for those of us at home with children.  We’ve had them at home with us the whole time since they broke up for Christmas!  However, it’s important that we make weekends and “not at school” times feel different for our children.  We’re not just talking about keeping the kids occupied, it’s much more important than that.  The monotony of a year where opportunities for holidays, going out to the shops, seeing friends and family, meals out, parties and activities like soft-play, swimming pools or school discos have been severely limited means that every day begins to feel like the groundhog day.

Humans (and monkeys too, research from Rome has confirmed) like variety.  You’ve heard the old adage “A change is as good as a rest”, the times when we are not doing school-dictated activity are a great opportunity to inject some variety for yourself as well as your children.

In the past I’ve talked often about the importance of allowing children to develop boredom, not to over-organise or over-structure their day-to-day lives, to allow their imaginations to flourish and increase the opportunities for free play.  I’m going to suggest that at this point, our children have had plenty of opportunity for free-play and imagination this past twelve months.  They’ve sadly had to occupy themselves apart from their peers, which makes free play and imagination so much harder.  Right now, they probably need a bit of direction and support.

If you’re also trying to work from home, or are having to go out to work and juggle childcare (difficult to access at the moment) this can be particularly hard.  However, I’d suggest that both you and your child need that emotional connection more than ever that you get from doing things together.

The ideas below for fun things to do in lockdown range from quick ideas you can use to inspire your children to go and do alone, to more complex activities that you will need to do together.  There are indoor and outdoor activities and ideas targeting younger children as well as older.  There is bound to be something to suit you. 

Indoor things to do in lockdown 

Building

Classic | Themes | Official LEGO® Shop GB
Image from Lego.com

Are those big boxes of Lego or other building blocks gathering dust in the corner?  Sometimes all the children need is a bit of inspiration. Whether you search for “Fun things to make with Lego” (producing results like this) or you set a “build the longest bridge” type challenge.  To really get them engaged, even older kids will value having you sit and build with them as they get started.  Once their imagination is in full flow, you can nip off to make a cup-of-tea and they won’t even notice you’ve gone.  Unless of course, you’re having so much fun that you want to stay and play!

Hide and seek or sardines

Easy to play and a lot of fun, though better with more players so best for a large family.  We all know how to play Hide and Seek.  In Sardines, one person hides, then as each player finds them, they have to squeeze into the same hiding place.

Paper mache

A great (if messy) craft for all ages. A quick internet search will reveal tons of inspiring ideas and you can always make something that fits into whatever your child is interested in, from dinosaur eggs to frog pots, from spooky castles to fairy palaces. This easy and cheap craft requires patience as you wait for layers to dry before adding the next bit, but the results can be spectacular.

DIY Salt Dough Ornaments and Easy Mobile — Value Minded Mama
Image from valuemindedmama.com

Salt dough crafts

Another craft that requires virtually nothing in the way of material (just flour, salt and water, and some paints to finish off).  You can create decorations, wall plaques or even doll-house food!

Junk Modelling

Raid the recycle bin to create some amazing creations: from monster robots to castles, egg box crocodiles to space rockets and milk carton cities. 

Baking

This is definitely a win-win activity.  Not only do you keep a little person very busy, teach them measuring skills, food hygiene and the importance of cleaning up after themselves, but you also get a tasty treat to eat at the end of all the fun!

Make bookmarks

If your child loves to read, then they will always be looking for something to mark their place in their book.  A bookmark making activity is both practical and fun.  Whether you go down the origami route, drawing and laminating, or sewing using binca or felt, there will be a bookmark activity to suit you and your kids.

Movie theatre

We can’t go to the cinema at the moment, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make the experience.  Choose a great movie you all want to watch, dim the lights, put up the volume and snuggle down with a bowl of popcorn each.

Scout ActivitiesThe Scout Association - Wikipedia

The Scouts have been inspiring children and guiding them through learning skills for life in hands-on activities for over a Century.  Where better to turn for some great ideas for our children during lock-down.  Scouts – The Great Indoors is a great collection of activities curated by The Scouts during the first lockdown.  Even better – you might consider joining your local Scout Group (for boys and girls 6-18), many have been offering online Scouting throughout the pandemic as well as outdoor activities whenever restrictions allow. 

“Let’s go Live” and other Science experiments

There are lots of Science experiments and activities to do at home floating around the internet.  Some require a bit of preparation and equipment, others are a bit easier to manage.  An example is here on Good Housekeeping, or here on ScienceFun.org.  To get really inspired though, I would highly recommend “Let’s Go Live“, with Maddie and Greg on YouTube.  They present a fun video introducing a scenario, the Science and a lot of fun each week.

Board Games and Card Games

Yes, it’s time to get the Board Games and Card games out.  You’ll often need to do these with your children to begin with, while you teach them how to play and how to both win and lose gracefully!

Dressing up!

You don’t have to go out and buy a whole load of fancy-dress costumes.  A selection of hats, bags, scarves, and access to mum or dad’s wardrobe will provide a wealth of fun!  A challenge to “see who can wear the strangest costume” is a great way to get things started.

Image result for mini crafts for kids
Image from www.creativejewishmom.com

Making things in miniature

There are many great things about making things in miniature, but I’ll be honest, some of my favourites are that they  don’t use up much material and the projects don’t take up a lot of space! An internet search for “mini crafts for kids” reveals some lovely ideas from mini books to tiny polymer clay animals. Model railway scenery or dollhouse or fairy garden accessories also fall firmly into this category.

Home-made playdough

I’m a big fan of playdough. Not only is it fun, encourages creativity and imagination along with literacy skills as the child tells you what they are making, but it also builds up those motor skills and hand-eye coordination which are so important as children begin to write.  Here’s my recipe for home-made playdough: Mix 1 cup of plain flour, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup salt, 2tbsp veg oil, 2tbsp cream of tartare and food colouring in a saucepan over a medium heat.  Keep stirring as it turns from liquid to a dryish doughy mix.  This mix will keep well if covered. 

Paper aeroplanes

This is an excellent STEM challenge for older challenge.  There are a host of paper aeroplane instructions out there for lots of different aeroplane shapes.  Challenge your child or children to experiment with plane types, paper weight and size to find the best paper aeroplane in the following categories – paper plane that flies furthest, flies fastest, and is most acrobatic.

Water play

Technically this could be an indoor or an outdoor activity, but I’ve put it here because people often overlook the potential for water play indoors. Kitchen’s can usually be mopped, or the bath is a great place to contain water.  Whether this is a toddler just having a good splash and pouring water from one container to another, or an older child creating miniature boats, or finding a way to move water uphill, there’s something for everybody here.

Recycle box aquarium

Image result for cereal box aquarium
from TheBestIdeasforKids.com

This is one of the simplest ideas, and yet will not only occupy a rainy afternoon, but also creates something that can look great! Cut one side out of a cereal box.  Paint the outside.  Decorate the inside to look like an aquarium, then hang your fish from the top so they “swim”.  Fantastic!

Painting

Children LOVE painting and there are lots of reasons why it’s a valuable activity for them to do.  You can read a summary here at the Innovation Kids Lab. When my children were small I tended to get them to paint at an easel outdoors where possible, or in the kitchen with no clothes on!  As they got older, we had two types of paint – poster paints required table covering, aprons, and cleaning up together.  I also bought one of those tins of water colour tablets each for them (cheap and easy to get hold of).  These are a lot less messy and meant that the children could paint whenever they wanted to. Now, aged 10 and 11, they have access to a whole range of paints and are confident to both use them, and clean up after themselves!

Microwave mug cakes and armpit fudge

We’ve already talked about baking, but these are super-easy, super-quick, minimal equipment baking wonders.  Here are 34 different mug-cake recipes from Country Living Magazine.  Armpit fudge is one that sounds disgusting, but the kids will adore squishing all the ingredients together in a zip-lock bag under their arm and then digging in for a sweet-treat.  Full instructions here at www.mum-friendly.co.uk.   

Housework

I know, right?  This is a radical idea.  My eleven year-old still seems surprised when I expect him to help out around the house, despite the fact that we’ve been doing it since he was a toddler.  However, the importance of teaching children life skills, and the self-esteem they get from being useful can’t be overestimated.  In addition, doing housework together is more fun!

Dance contest or Zumba

Some kids just love to move and there’s no reason why this can’t happen in lockdown.  Dance mats and the software to run them are available for most games consoles, but you could also play videos of dance routines or Zumba to join in with, some are designed specifically to be child-friendly, or just put the music on loud and jump and dance around the room together like crazy. 

Outdoor things to do in lockdown 

Getting outdoors is more important than ever.  When you are cooped up in the same four walls day after day, little niggles soon become big irritations.  Getting some fresh air and exercise will make everybody feel better.  However, current guidance restricting travel for exercise, even a trip to the Gruffalo Trail at the local nature reserve is advised against.  Try some of these activities instead:

Treasure Hunt

A way to make a walk more fun and increase observation skills. Take a list of things to spot on your daily walk around the block.  This might include: somebody walking a dog, somebody with a push-chair, a red front door, a car from another country, somebody on a bike, snowdrops or crocuses.  Tick them off together as you find them.

Lawnside Play Park, Ledbury, Herefordshire - freeparks.co.uk
image from freeparks.co.uk

Local Park

The current rules state that playparks remain open primarily for those children who do not have their own garden. You can take your child to a playpark for exercise, but you should not socialise with other people while there. 

Bug Hunt

A bug hunt in the garden is a great way to get the children closer to nature in your own back garden and requires no equipment.  At this time of year, the bugs are hiding away, so it’s quite challenging.

Chalk Drawing

Get a pack of chalks and draw on the walls or paving slabs outside (it will all wash away in the rain).  Younger children will just enjoy making marks with a different medium, while older children can really  exercise their artistic talents – there are some lovely ideas here and here.

Build a nest

This activity really gets children thinking about how amazing birds are.  Make a bird nest using only natural materials.  Here are the instructions.

Feed the birds

This is the time of year when birds are most in need of a helping hand.  The insects are still hidden away for the winter, seeds are becoming scarce and mating and nesting is underway using up a lot of birdie energy.  Whether filling up bought bird feeders or making your own feeders from pipe-cleaners and Cheerios, from empty plastic bottlesor from toilet roll tubes.

outdoor frozen winter craft ideas for kids - ice suncatchersCreate frozen suncatchers

Frozen suncatchers will get your little ones thinking about the weather, and also about the natural materials around them. Find the instructions here.

Geocaching

With a free version of the Geocaching app, this is basically a free global treasure hunt!  Just create an account and you could soon be spicing up your walks by searching for and finding caches hidden on your route.

Whittling

Knife crime is reaching horrific rates, with more than 35,000 knife offences recorded between March 2019 and March 2020.  Rather than trying to keep our young people away from knives, we need to 1) give them confidence to tackle conflict in peaceful ways and 2) teach them that knives are useful tools to be handled safely, rather than weapons.  Some great advice on types of knife, safety and inks to appropriate videos and books, can be found on the fabulous Get Out With the Kids.

Firelighting

As a Scout Leader, I love teaching children to light fires.  First, you teach the theory and the safety – how to do the activity safely, when to light fires and when not to, adult supervision, where to light fires, extinguishing fires safely etc.  For beginners, lighting a match and lighting a candle is challenge enough.  Then progress on to learning about different types of kindling and fuel, and how to construct and build a fire.  Just collecting wood is an activity in itself!  As they get more experienced, you can look at lighting fires without using a match, trying out flint and steel, rubbing two sticks and the like. 

Bike ride

A bike ride is a brilliant way to keep fit and explore the area where you live.  Work out a safe cycle route, with as few roads as possible (or very quiet ones) and get out exploring on two wheels.

Place Kindness Rocks

Rock Painting Complete Guide to Painted Rocks | Kindness Stones or Rocks | Inspire Kindness
image from www.inspirekindness.com

Painting rocks is a lovely creative activity.  You can either paint images, turn your rock into a whimsical creature, or decorate your rock with a kind and inspiring quote.  On your next walk, place these inspiring rocks for others to find on their walks, and spread a little love and happiness.

Gardening

There are so many reasons to garden with children that I could write a whole blog post about it (and I might!).  From engaging senses, linking with nature, learning where food comes from, motor skills, vocabulary and more, spending time engaged in active work outdoors is really fulfilling and doing it together gives time to chat and spend time together.

Night hike

Going for a walk, even somewhere familiar, suddenly becomes more interesting and exciting if you go out in the dark.  The use of a torch is fun by itself, but try switching the torches off and see how your eyesight adjusts to the lower light levels and how your brain compensates by intensifying your other senses of smell and hearing.  You might even be lucky enough to spot more interesting wildlife such as bats, owls, foxes, hedgehogs or badgers that you wouldn’t see in daylight.

Create a “percussion wall”

Hang various old pans, wooden spoons and pipes and tubes from a wall, fence or tree in your garden to make a space where noise-making is encouraged and celebrated.

Star gazing

Before sunset gets too late for the little ones, take the opportunity to spend some time looking at the stars.  On a cloudless night, find the darkest place you can, away from street lights if possible – just a few miles out into the country makes all the difference, if restrictions allow.  Take a deckchair or blanket so you can lie down, and snuggle down into a sleeping bag or more blankets and check out the stars.  There are plenty of apps out there such as Star Chart or StarGazing that can tell you what you are looking at.  If you have a telescope or binoculars, you can examine the moon and stars more closely.  Keep warm with a hot chocolate.

Winter photography

How often do your children get involved with photography aside from daft selfies? Encourage them to broaden their photography horizons with a winter picture challenge.  Any camera will do.  Whether its getting up close to a dew-spangled spider-web, or taking photos of a hare in a snowy field, winter holds some fascinating scenes for those who take the trouble to frame a shot.

Tic Tac Toe - Stone Bees & Ladybugs - Red Ted Art - Make crafting with kids easy & funOutdoor noughts and crosses

So quick and easy to create, this can provide a quick activity for children to do together or with you at any time.  Paint pebbles in two different ways (I love this bumble bee and ladybird idea from Red Ted Art).  A 3 x 3 grid painted on a paving slab or log slice creates the playing zone.

Winter BBQ or cooking on an open fire

Following on from the firelighting activity earlier comes the liberating activity of cooking on fire.  Reaching back through the mists of time to prepare food just the way your ancestors did (or just toasting marshmallows on sticks!), is a fun and creative activity and creates a whole new taste adventure.  Look up “Backwoods cooking recipes” or “cooking on open fire” for some great suggestions.

Stick sword fight

So often in our risk-averse world we tell children to “put that stick down” or “watch out” and “be careful!”.  Wouldn’t it be great to take the brakes off and allow them to stick fight – or better yet, join in with them too!  

Local area exploration

Are your children often ferried in the car from activity to activity? This is particularly true for families in rural areas and you may have found that your “daily exercise” in lockdown has been the first time you’ve roamed your neighbourhood footpaths and byways.  It’s always fun to take time to “see where this goes” or follow a coin-toss adventure (at every junction toss a coin – heads = right, tails = left) to see where you end up.

I hope that you’ve found some great ideas for things to do in lockdown with your children at this time of year, despite the weather and the covid restrictions.  I’ll be writing in more detail about some of these activities in future posts, so do keep coming back for more.  I’d also love you to comment your own ideas of activities you’ve been doing with the children this Spring.

From the wonderful Monty Python and John Cleese: https://twitter.com/JohnCleese/status/1353764231288561664/photo/1

John Cleese – On Creativity


I think it would be very difficult for anybody to dispute that John Cleese is both playful and creative.  Co-founder of Monty Python, scriptwriter on The Frost Report, co-writer of Fawlty Towers and writer of “A fish called Wanda” and “Fierce Creatures”.

If anybody is well-placed to write a book about creativity it’s John Cleese.

Now, I’m obviously not going to give away all the guidance John gives in this, as it says on the cover, “short and cheerful guide”, because its a new book, and if I tell you all the answers then you won’t go and buy it!  

Suffice it to say, that he’s got some excellent advice and I recommend buying Creativity, by John Cleese. It’s also well worth following his irreverence on Twitter.

writing for pleasure

“She’s loving all the work you’ve been setting recently.  Except the writing.”  This was something I heard several times when speaking to parents during the lock-down.  It worried me.  I’d worked hard to plan work that was engaging and creative.  But these children had learnt to dislike writing before they got to age 6, and it wasn’t going to be easy to convince them otherwise.

Writing falls into two broad camps.  Writing to communicate, and writing for pleasure.  

Writing as a form of communication

is things like:

  • Reports for the boss
  • Information texts
  • Instructional texts like recipes
  • Letters, emails, texts and tweets
  • Newspaper and magazine articles and blog posts.

It’s important when you are writing for communication that you follow the rules of grammar and spelling and the expected form of the genre.  This ensures that the person / people reading your writing gets the meaning from it that you intended.

Writing for pleasure

is just for you.  It’s writing because you want to, as a form of expression.  This might be:

  • Journalling,
  • Poetry
  • stories

When we are writing for pleasure, it isn’t so important whether anybody else can read it because it isn’t for anybody else.  Just for you.

Clearly, there’s an overlap.  We can take great pleasure in writing for communication and I certainly enjoy writing my blog and writing a good letter.  In addition, stories and poetry intended for publication must be clear and adhere to those same rules as writing for communication.

 

The sad thing is that children in school are missing out on writing for pleasure.  Before they even reach age 5 they are supposed to have moved on from the delightful emergent writing “mark-making” stage to writing “simple sentences that can be read by themselves and others” (EYFS Framework, England).  From this point on they are taught phonics and an ever increasing repertoire of grammatical terminology.  By the end of Key Stage 1 (age 6-7) children’s writing is being assessed on their ability to spell, to form neat handwriting, to write narrative, to use punctuation and tense and subordinate clauses.

 

The focus on the technical aspects of spelling, handwriting and punctuation is great from a writing for communication perspective (though when, as an adult, you would ever need to know whether you have used the present progressive or present perfect tense is beyond me) but for many children it has led to writing being a chore.  I’ve seen teachers recommending almost a formulaic approach – “Open your first sentence with a simile.  Make sure your next sentence has a subordinate clause.”  Even I have ended up saying, “Check, have you included a question mark yet?  If not, try to get a question in the next couple of sentences,” as I’ve tried to tick the Assessment tick-boxes that say that the child needs to use a range of sentence types.  Children are taught the structure and form of different genres, without the real sense of purpose that goes with them.  Teachers do their best to make their lessons fun and purposeful.  I’ve seen a Reception classroom with a “crashed spaceship” in the corner where the children are busy writing letters to the missing alien.  The headteacher claimed that the local council were planning to extend the leisure centre next door and we would lose half the playground so the whole school could write persuasive letters to argue why this shouldn’t happen.  However, with such a focus on getting the technical aspects right, it is very hard to help children discover the pleasure of writing spontaneously and creatively.

Because that’s the difference.  Writing for pleasure needs to be an intrinsic form of self expression – it can’t be an externally dictated exercise.

A simple answer

I covered an absence in one school where each child had a “journal”.  The end of the afternoon on Friday was journal time.  They had been bought beautiful notebooks.  During that time on the Friday afternoon they were asked to fill a page or two of their journals.  These were private and were not collected in, though if they wanted some feedback they could leave it on the teacher’s desk.  They could write or draw or both.  They could use fancy pens and colours.  They were not told what to write, though there was a list of prompts to help them if they were stuck for an idea.  These children all loved their “journal time”.  I saw beautifully illustrated poetry, short stories, diary entries and comic strips, a recipe for a good friend.  What I loved was that these children were putting into practice the technical and structural features they had been learning in their Literacy lessons, but they were doing it in a way that was completely theirs.  They were learning that writing can be pleasurable and creative.  

To read more:

Writing for Pleasure course for 8-11 year olds

I offer a 5 day “Writing for Pleasure” course for 8-11 year olds to rediscover the pleasure of writing as a creative art.  I guide the children through different genres, exploring and playing with form.  The course is made of 5 x 30 minute exploratory sharing sessions:

  1. Short stories
  2. Poetry
  3. Journaling
  4. The writing community – sharing your writing
  5. Improving our writing

There are no “homework tasks” from these sessions and children are encouraged but not compelled to share their writing.  The atmosphere is fun and supportive.  Click here to find the dates and sign up for the next course.