mybellarachel-blog

[mybellarachel-blog]

Floater is the first book to be released that my dad and I have made. We’ve literally spent years, on and off, working on this book. The way we work is, we spend hours brainstorming ideas until we have our story. This can take weeks and months. And then, my dad heads off to his office to write, and I trudge off to my computer to illustrate. We work really well together.

I don’t think either of us think this is a perfect book. There’s always things we look back on and wish we’d improved, but overall we’re very satisfied with how it turned out. You can buy it at Amazon.com

[mybellarachel-blog]

Prompt 7

How to build stories - Sydney Story Factory 

I found this resource to be particularly interesting as many students struggle with starting a story. We completed an exercise in our seminar where we had to write a story ‘cold’ and experienced firsthand how daunting this can be for many students who struggle with this method of writing. At first I thought that this resource was a written resource and found it was drab and unexciting but I was completely wrong! The resource takes the the form of a tv show with a host (a member of the Sydney Story Factory). The format was engaging and the information was useful, particularly the structure ideas that were given. The resource features 7 chapters (videos) each building on the concepts from the previous chapter. My only critique would be that the videos are rather short (between 3-5 minutes in length). This would not be so bad did they not all begin with the same introduction from the host meaning to play them one after the other would be quite tiring. 

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Prompt 6

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Prompt 5

I would begin the class by asking students what they see on the front cover. From here I would lead a discussion in what they think the story might be about. As the students respond, I would write these responses on the board. Before reading the text, I would have students write/draw what they think the text may be about in their books. 

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Prompt 4

While on placement I had the opportunity to run a writing activity with my Grade 1/2 class. The activity I created was based on a Whodunnit scenario in which there had been a robbery in Fairytale land and the Fairytale police needed the help of the class in solving the case. The class were introduced to the four main suspects and then they were placed into table groups where each group was presented with a bag of evidence. Each bag was linked to one of the suspects e.g. one bag had a blue ribbon and a porridge spoon which linked to Goldilocks. Based on the evidence each student had to write their own justification of who they believed the culprit was and create their own wanted poster. 

I was thankful that right from the beginning of the class the students were actively engaged in the imagination of the story (some students still believed that they were really helping the Fairytale police after the activity had ended!). I have seen with children, particularly very young children, that the more involved and engaged that you are with the story they will respond in kind. This task was great fun and it allowed the students to really engage with their imagination! 

[mybellarachel-blog]

Prompt 3

While on placement in a Grade 1/2 classroom I was given the task of working with a group of students who were a few levels behind in their reading and writing. The students had been given a task to write a story based on a given prompt. One of the students produced something that was completely ineligible so I took this to my supervising teacher to find out where I should start with marking this student’s work. I was quite surprised when my supervising teacher instructed me to try and work out the meaning of the ‘gibberish’ and not to write in any corrections as she said that this could discourage the student in her writing. At the time I remember thinking that this student was not going to advance with their writing if they could not spell and that while her enthusiasm for the story was great, there was a serious need for her to improve the legibility her writing. I am not sure whether this process of not correcting students’ work for fear of discouraging them is a common practice in primary schools but I would be interested to know others’ thoughts and experiences? 

[mybellarachel-blog]

I love this poster as it helps children to expand their vocabulary and prevents them from using the same words in all of their writing. I have seen many similar posters in classrooms that I have been in. Another tool I have used with students to help expand their vocabulary and think about words is a “Word of the Day” activity in which we randomly select a new word from the dictionary each day and list it and it’s definition.

[mybellarachel-blog]

Prompt 1

One of my earliest memories of being read to in school is my Grade 1 teacher reading our class the Mr McGee books by Pamela Allen. I never liked these books so perhaps this is why the memory has stuck with me for all these years! 

As a child, my mother would read me many books. These included the Enid Blyton series as well as the Chronicles of Narnia books. The most captivating memory I have of these times was picturing the characters and the scenes in my mind. I used to love doing this. The pictures I imagined were so clear that I could still remember what I saw if I was to read these books again now.