Here is a great way to help young children retell a familiar story. It's really a retake on the story map, yet this becomes an interactive visual aid to assist with retelling.
Use when sharing a children's picture book that has a clear plot defined in parts by characters (like The Gruffalo, The Enormous Turnip, Monkey Puzzle), or by objects (such as Dear Santa, Don't Forget the Bacon, Going on A Bear Hunt).
Draw or copy images of the characters/objects onto a circle in the correct order, as they appear in the story. (For Don't Forget the Bacon, children could even cut pictures out of food magazines). In our Gruffalo story wheel, we're ordering the characters who mouse meets, so the four characters are coloured and pasted on.
Adding numbers to the wheel scaffolds the activity, just leave them off to create more of a challenge. Place a second circle on top, with a window removed just the right size to reveal one character or object at a time. Secure with a split pin. Our story wheel has mouse on the top, so he faces each new character in turn!
Who is Austin Kleon? An inspiring contemporary poet. He uses newspaper articles from the New York Times as unique canvases for creating his verse. Here is one of Austin's first time lapse videos that immediately had me intrigued last year:
Of course the first thing I wanted to do, after trying it out myself, was to see if the children would find this technique successful and worth exploring. We began by visiting the official website Newspaperblackout.com, where the children could read examples by Austin and view poems shared by fans using his method. As we watched a short interview with the poet, I could see that the boys in particular were itching to give it a try. "This is cool, have we got newspapers?"
They were immediately hooked.
I think the most daunting thing for a child who wants to write creatively is a blank page. So white, so empty, so demanding. As a teacher, finding ways to make the planning process less of a struggle is always top of my agenda.
This really works.
The newspaper acts as a scaffold. Children with a limited vocabulary are exposed to words, in context, that they can use directly in their poem. I used a type of modelled writing to show the children how I used the method myself, carefully talking through the entire process. Then the children worked in pairs, or alone if they preferred, to create their own blackout poems.
We also did this a few weeks before the children were doing a unit on writing newspaper recounts, so this was a great opportunity to talk about headlines, sub-headings and columns etc. My socks were blown off when I read the results. Some children even used this as an opportunity to incorporate simile and metaphor - techniques we'd previously explored!!!
You'll need to provide a stack of newspaper articles (careful with content ;) ), black sharpie pens or permanent markers and scissors.
In the process of modelling....
and one child's blackout poem:
"Twins
get a new
mum
and dad
when
The boys, who
had a
terrible kid
situation
ran from
their parents
to
Nottinghamshire
Here you can see how one child has used the end 's' sound, the word a, and the next capital letter 'T' to create "sat" - this one poem is so intense.
I just wish I'd taken more photographs of these... make sure you do!! I'm sure Austin would love to have more contributions to his site!
Our Titanic topic this term has the children so engaged! We've been observing old postcards and photographs of the liner and trying to capture the essence of her size and significance. I love how this child has made his charcoal Titanic escape the page, conveying the scale so effectively!
This topic is of local interest too as our school is quite literally a twenty minute walk from the Titanic Quarter in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Next month we are visiting the Thompson Dry Dock, where the liner was fitted out and painted.
My class won £1,000 in an art competition this year, so the prize money will cover an open top bus and a tour guide! We can't wait!
Thanks a bunch for visiting! At Learning Parade we share ideas in literacy and creativity to promote positive learning experiences at home and in school.
