Creative Writing Activity One

Magical Beach Aventures

Well chosen books and pieces of music can act as excellent stimuli for leading children into guided visualizations and meditations which can lead children into spaces whereby they can tap into the rich veins of their creative imaginations to produce excellent creative writing I have found such activities very doable with whole classes of children. I have included two examples of such an activity centred in Beach themes ,one using carefully selected books which are available in libraries perhaps even school libraries and the other using a piece of ambient music . Activity One : Magic Beach Creative Writing adventure

Stimulus Books Magic Beach by Alison Lester About the book: Magic beach is an exquisite book .Written in the first person from a child s perspective.The story captures the warm happy carefree feeling of family beach holidays while taking children further into magical realms of possibility of other parallel kingdoms close at hand to which everyday beach features rock pools and sandcastles and ocean waves are the magic portals of entry. It takes the reader on a excursion to a much loved beach where regular every day beach delights and features are transformed by the childs imagination into magical scenes of fantastic adventure . .Rock pools become the scene of fanciful underwater adventures as like Alice in Wonderland the child story teller transports himself herself into the rock pool to engage with the little creatures there who assume the guise of fanciful underwater sea creatures with magical powers whisking the child away on extraordinary adventures .Sandcastle creations become the settings for high noon fairytale dramas with princesses and mythical monsters and fairy tale creatures . The waves with their foaming white crests become a galloping stampede of wild horses.etc As the story closes children are happily tucked up snug in their ocean holiday house while the moon glistens on the restless ocean and while little bodies rest the story suggests spirits are out on the ocean frolicking and dancing . The illustrations in this book are an absolute joy ;full of minute lively animated detail which little kids love to recognise and point out to you as you tell the story . This book then can both as a story and a visual stimulus provide an excellent entry point into a guided visualization to prepare children for a creative writing process about a magical beach adventure.

Book two: Castles Castles by Allan Baille illustrated by Carolyn Mageral (Penguin /Viking Camberwell Victoria 2005 Another beautiful book written on the same theme with the same idea in mind with sandcastles being the childs portal into fantastic and magical adventures but with a completely different literary style is In this lovely book a little girl (the princess )is on the beach and she builds a sandcastle .Before too long a boy comes along the pirate and builds a pirate ship right next to the castle and starts to fire his cannons at the castle causing the towers to topple .The indignant princess decides to demolish her castle and in its place builds instead a pirate frightener called a Belchem which she describes as a very big monster of the deep designed to scare the maurauding pirate away .In retaliation the pirate adds a terrible beak and wings and transforms his boat into a Fangery which he claims loves to chomp scurvy girls ..A fierce battle ensues in which the princess and her Belchim outwit the pirate and cause irreparable damage to his Fangery .The pirate decides to abandon his ailing ship and jumps onto the Belchim where the indignant Princess threatens to push him off.The Pirate then wisely decides to call a truce and asks the girl if they might be friends instead. Luckily for him the princess agrees and they both fly down to the safety of the sand where they return to lying on their towels surrounded by big mounds of sand which are their glorious sand creations demolished in battle. I love the literary style of this book.The prose shimmers with rich sumptuous imagery and olde worlde seafaring references .The writing is elegant and eloquent while remaining accessible to the child reader for which it is intended.Say 7-10 years .The illustrations are lovely soft watercolours . The pictures are magical, filled with lively energies of battle and lots of action and movement on every page with wide expanses of blue suggesting restless blue oceans stretching away for ever into unknown and undiscovered faraway kingdoms.

Creative Writing Activity......Magic Beach Adventures Step One Step two Read Book to children Class discussion about writing exercise

After reading the story tell the children that today they are going to write about their own beach adventure .Here the teacher can focus on having children work within a fairly defined focus of say having a sandcastle adventure.Or the scope of the activity might be much broader encompassing the range of possibilities for adventures children might have at the beach. Possibilities to think about include adventures set in rock pools ,having seagulls assume the proportion of mythical giant birds or being chased by a shark on your surfboard .Childrens beach adventures may involve disappearing under the waves and being called to an underwater adventure with sea creatures there . Discuss and expand on these with the children as possibilities they can look to .Ask kids to think about what in particular they like to do at the beach which might form the best basis for their writing of truly engaging stories when they can draw on first hand experience of something they have already engaged in and found pleasurable and meaningful . More pragmatic children find it easier to tell pragmatic stories which are sometimes even recounts of actual beach adventures they have had while other children will jump right into the spirit of the activity and let their imaginations carry them away into fantasy realms to rival the best Hollywood motion pictures..The children can be encouraged to think about what form their adventure might take after the book has been read and before they are led into the visualization process . Step 3 Building a Vocabulary Bank

Teachers are also encouraged as they lead the discussion with children about the story they are about to write to build a vocab bank on the board of words children as a class are likely to use .This will save a lot of hands up and request for spe lling help which can waste time and divert children from being in the flow with their creative writing process . To encourage children to become multisensory writers encourage them to build up a vocab which draws on all their senses .Ask them to envisage how the beach smells, e.g. fishy salty sunscreen etc What sounds do they hear? E.g. .waves seagulls, children playing laughing etc, ,What do they feel? E.g. hot sun beating down on them cool breezes soft or squelchy sand between their toes etc .What do they taste e.g. fish and chips,.gritty sand,.salty water,.ice cream etc .What do they see ? etc

Step 4

Organizing to write

Once the vocab bank has been built. it is time to get children to organize their writing materials at their desks ready to move to after the guided visualization is completed . Step 5 Relaxation

Depending on available space and what the teacher and the class feel comfortable with the guided visualization may either be done with children sitting at their desk resting their heads in comfortable positions on their arms with their eyes closed or lying on the floor. In either pose they need to be encouraged to breath deeply and slowly and relax . Children lying on the floor lie comfortably with their eyes closed .They are led through a meditation to breathe slowly and deeply into their bellies while clenching and relaxing each of their muscles from the toes upward through the body to the eyes .This should take no more than about 7 minutes . Step 6 Guided Visualization Process

The visualization now begins. Ask children to go now to their beach in their imaginations..they are sitting or lying on their towels at the beach lead them through a multisensory engagement with being at the beach through each of their senses taste touch smell hearing and sight as you did with building the vocab bank.Its really important to do this well in the visualization as this will really help children to truly situate themselves and immerse themselves in their imaginary experience of being at the beach.Take time to work through each of the senses asking them what they see smell taste hear feel etc? Ask children to sit up and look around ..Is it a familiar beach one they know well or perhaps a beach they have never visited before ? Ask them to establish are there other children close by? Do they know these children Is it someone they might already have met or know or who might be part of their adventure?.Ask the children to notice that their parents or guardians are fast asleep under their beach umbrellas perhaps they can even hearing them snoring which now gives the children licence to go on their adventures untrammelled and uhindered by parental supervision and control .Freedom is one of the keys to creative licence which will propel them on their imaginary adventures with delighted and relished freedom from parental restraints . Now ask the children to think about what they might do next as they step into their adventure The choice is theirs .They might see their bucket and spade and decide to build a sandcastle ..They might see some good waves and decide to get their surf board and go for a surf or go for a walk along the beach.They might hear a voice calling the down at the waters edge whatever choice they make will be the entry point into their creative writing adventures.

Step 7

Beginning writing process

This will be the point at which they are ready to start to write . Now bring the children back into the classroom by asking them to hold their beach adventure in their mind but now to come back to the classroom where they are going to write about their adventures .Ask children to sit up slowly to locate the corners of the room the ceiling and the floor the floor to feel themselves to be properly back in the classroom space and direct them to go to their desks and begin their stories when the are ready . The entry point into the story can be simple and direct The stories can be entitlled : My Magic Beach Adventure

They can start their stories with a sentence such as I was very hot lying there in the sun so I decided to go for a swim to cool down or as I lay on my towel I felt I could hear the ocean calling to me so I walked to the waters edge .. Story structure,grammar etc I dont use creative writing lessons to actually teach grammar or structure in too much detail. I feel too much pedantry at this point can be time consuming and break the flow of the creative writing experience for the child . but I do remind children of the importance of having an opening paragraph to grab the readers attention and using new paragraphs to introduce new ideas in their stories and having well defined closing paragraphs as conclusions . After building a vocab bank I also let children use their own personal spelling banks for help with spelling as they go or else I ask them to do their best and I correct their spellings when I mark their essays and get them to write the corrected word in their own little spelling bank books Writing Templates I usually provide an illustrated creative writing template with a border which children find fun and inspirational to write on .The border on the template or the soft sketchy illustration as a background on the writing template is usually thematically based and often borrowed from the story book I use as the stimulus.Sometimes I allow children to write straight onto the template if I have them for a limited time but when I know I will see them for more than one session I might have them do their first drafts in their story writing draft books and then put their final drafts onto the template.

Illustrating their work I encourage children to illustrate their work after therir stories are completed by drawing an accompanying picture or tying in a relevant art activity such as collage. This is a great activity especially for early finishers and one which kids readily and enthusiastically immerse themselves in .They are usually highly motivated to give visual representation to their stories . Presenting their stories to the class At the end of the lesson I allow for a sharing time when kids are invited to come up and read their stories to the rest of the class and show their pictures.Usually children just clamour to come up and read their work out loud .Its such a buzz as the teacher to see children standing up their in front of the class reading their stories out loud clearly proud of what they have written .Its a good idea to have one or two other children offer positive comment about what they liked about the readers story too. Marking Creative writing lessons are labour intensive for teachers because it takes a focus of commitment on the teachers part to truly bring ones awareness to the childs story to get into the zone with it and to honour what the kid has written . Teachers know only to well It often takes the patience of a saint ( and then some) to sift through handwriting that is sometimes barely legible to read .It is often tempting to give the kids work short shrift when you can barely read it . It also takes skill and patience to discern the balance what could have been done differently to make the story better and what is already shining through in its creative and literary worth and achievement for the child. It involves not only marking punctuation and grammar but as the teacher getting into the spirit of appreciation for the story the child has either written or is trying to write and it is no small undertaking to do this job well. I recommend always seek to find something merit worthy to praise the childs efforts especially those parts where you can see that the child is not acting as imitator in their writing but innovator and it is their own unique creative literary voice coming through where they are experimenting with language being adventurous with vocab thinking outside the box with their ideas etc .