A treat for the final half term - a new workshop at a delightful school in Leeds! This half term I am working with two Year 5 teachers to develop a cross-year group, cross-curricular writing project based on my favourite picture book, Armin Greder's The Island . I've done this book many times and every time the response is different! This week, we got to grips with the facts, possibilities and mysteries of the story. What do we know about the story so far? (we only ever read up to page 6 to leave it on a knife edge...) What doesn't this story tell us and what could we infer or predict?     We looked at the crowd of islanders who 'welcome' the stranger's arrival. As in every class, country or community, no group ever sees the world the same way and we discussed how the islanders might react differently to the man. Is he a poor thing who needs to be rescued? Is he a curiosity? Is he a threat? We each adopted an islander and took on their perspective f...

Buy this book! Image copyright by the owners. ARTiculate Bulletin wc.14.3.16 Bambert's Book of Missing Stories This story is not just a book of writing. It is a book about writing. Bambert lives a lonely, detached life with only Mr Bloom the greengrocer and the characters in his stories – The Book of Wishes - for company. Not convinced he knows enough of the world to make his writing believable, he sets his stories free on paper lanterns to find the characters and settings they deserve. In brief: Have you tried?  Ideas for talking and thinking : How do writers write? That is the question and this book gives you the starting point for a discussion about where ideas come from. Ideas for writing : Collaborate as a class or with another school on creative story writing. Ideas for art : Give your stories wings by building paper lanterns.       If you try any of the ideas I'd love to see the work your children produce! ...

This week's bulletin is inspired by a wonderful, charity shop chance-find picture book: The Whale Song by Dyan Sheldon. Here are some great ideas for you to use with this text. A  'Have You Tried?'  ideas sheet for The Whale's Song can be found  here .  The Whale's Song  by Dyan Sheldon and Gary Blythe This modest little book might not look like much on first glance, but it is a treasure trove of starting points for English and art. Lily, a little girl living with two elderly relatives, hears a tale about the whales that visit their shore. Infused with dreams and memories, the story explores the girl's imaginings and the hazy illustrations give the book a detached, ethereal quality.    In brief: Have you tried?  Ideas for talking and thinking : explore the characters' perspectives on the whales through drama and discussion. Are they magical beasts or an economic resource? Included this week are resources for character d...

Lessons on vocabulary gave us a clutch of exciting new words to try out; the drama let us explore the man's inner thoughts; the art work had given us a mood to recreate.  It can take time to immerse children in another world, but it is certainly worth the wait!  First draft! Week 4 After three workshops worth of discussing, acting, playing around with language, making notes, analysing and discussing how in fact you might catch a seagull to eat it*, we were ready to pour out ideas onto paper in a first draft. Analysing a text had given the group a five paragraph structure that they were going to follow to explain t hese mysteries, unanswered by Armin Greder's sparse text: Where the mystery man had come from? How did he come upon the raft? What were his first impressions of the peculiar island? Who are the strange and wild inhabitants of the island? What might the future might hold for the man. The narrative would be in the first person: the children retell...