Blog Archives - STORY SHACK

"Imagination is more important than knowledge..." Albert Einstein

3/22/2014

A powerful, inspiring day today-had a little what I used to call 'Rendlesham moment' which obviously isn't any more but those who know what one is know what I mean and if you don't it's a kind of emotional WOW moment where you just think 'that's spot on, amazing and needs to be recognised...'
I've said before that 'I Coriander' is one of the best stories I've ever read. It really is. I love the book and I was very proud to have it signed by the author herself- Sally Gardner-at the UKLA 'Finding your voice' conference. I was proud to be there with Storyshack ( a year on from its beginnings) and inspired by all the speakers I heard, particularly Sally's impassioned plea for educators to STOP this data driven
business and help children find their imagination and creativity through education. She really is worth hearing as she also speaks movingly about her awful experiences as a child who had dyslexia and was, deemed to be (in her words) thick as.... She's inspiring in many ways and also makes me think about what our schools are like for children who struggle to read and write but have so many other talents. Indeed for children who are defined by the ever increasingly narrow curriculum and therefore considering themselves to be failures what are we doing to them? What on earth are we creating for the future. What about children's imagination, their hopes, their DREAMS? We're fools if we consider them to be unimportant. I truly believe that. We are destroying what we know to be right. Somehow Mr. Gove and Ofsted have convinced even the previously child focused head teachers that it is correct to rob children of imagination-to clip their wings. That it's not important. So where, therefore, do they expect the next generation of thinkers and dreamers to come from? Where do they think our engineers, our doctors, our lawyers, our writers, artists, teachers will come from if we can't allow children to ever dream or imagine what their future will hold. If they can't see pictures, if they can't think creatively? If you don't know the power to imagine to be honest you're not going to be able to ever follow your dreams. The girl I saw on Sport Relief yesterday who opened an orphanage for special needs children having been helped by that charity 15 years ago for example. We must keep reading and we must keep imagining - it's more crucial than ever. We all need to do it, we all have a right to do it.......THE RIGHT TO IMAGINE

'Dear Cinderella, are your sisters still as ugly as ever?'+OTHER IMAGINATIVE CREATIONS

3/17/2014

Wonderful creatures, letters and books all created today by Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 at Queen's House to start their book week celebrations. It was a smashing day from start to finish. Have a look at the amazing creatures on the 'Imagineering in your school page'+ there will be more here http://www.lightingcreativefires.com later on because I'd like to talk a bit more about using lovely letter inspiring books to write more. But, for now there are some beautiful pages being made for a Year 1 class new "Jolly postman book" as you can see. Many characters put in an appearance such as the Gingerbread man, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Baby Bear and Peter Pan. King John gets a bit of a telling off from Robin Hood because 'he is very bossy.' Rapunzel has an offer of some new shampoo and a hairbrush for her hair. Really great letters that would make anybody want to read the book with, as always if given the chance, beautiful carefully drawn illustrations.

BOOKS
"FACTS
a book we

MADE
ABOUT
should all

BY YR 2
THINGS" is
have..... :-)

Got some card around the house? What are you waiting for....get book making :-)

3/16/2014

Choose some colourful wrapping, newspaper, something you've drawn yourself to cover the card. Wrap up the card, cutting the corners to make it neat.

Use some lovely tape or something 'sticky' to make the spine AND choose a colourful insert for the inside of your book

Make sure you use a STORYSHACK stamper!

Attach a tag or too if you like or not at all....

Make some holes in your card WHERE you'd like your pages to be. Here they're a bit like calendar pages but you can fold the paper and put them down the spine too.

Make some more holes in the pages and tie a bow...this way you can add more pages as you write more to take them out-it's your book so do what you'd like.

This one has envelopes in because it's going to 'house' some letters to fairytale characters I think...though that might change tomorrow :-)

Your cover is ready to decorate . Don't forget to add your own name-you should be very proud of your own handmade book. All you have to do now is decide what to put in it.

Follow the reading path-you can't go wrong whichever way you go....

3/12/2014

"The first thing I can remember is waking up in my cheese box....I could read the name on it. It said: Hermelin."

3/11/2014

Oh dear...foiled again. Now I have more books vying for attention today-a lovely thing really. The lovely people at Random House Children's books UK with particular thanks to Jasmine arrange for books to be delivered to Storyshack for review which is an amazing honour and total privilege.

But I really do have to do my marking for Faculty too!! Mix of marking + reading methinks.

I do have to confess...I've already read HERMELIN as told by Mini Grey (who also wrote 'Biscuit Bear' amongst others).
It's a delightful book-I know I often use that word but it really is!) about a mouse detective. Animal detectives seem to be a recurring theme this month. He is a very kind mouse who does all sorts of good deeds for his street thanks to his detective skills. There's a wonderful picture of all the characters in there at the beginning. I love the detail and I think you will too. There's lots of looking to be done so it's a lovely book for sharing too. For classes I would have thought it would be a great for many things as books always are BUT give real purpose for writing. He comes across a typewriter:
"When I saw this typewriter my paws tingled slightly and I knew I could write with it. I could write labels. I would write lists. I would write letters. I could write ANYTHING."
Well, with that sentence there must be many ways in to writing for children I think. I can imagine lots of notes and letters around the class and school thanks to Hermelin. There's also an interesting twist in the story due to ...well I'm not going to tell you because you can find out yourself! I hope there might be more-there's definitely scope to write your own adventures for Hermelin after reading it and hopefully Mini Grey might too.

Frantic dash to library to get 2nd one....Whoops-finished it too quickly

3/10/2014

Fatal error-finished this today but don't have the sequel-Couldn't believe it with that ending. Actually went 'on no' out loud. This is a cracking book for 12+ It's pretty graphic in some parts with gore, violent fighting and needs a strong stomach. However it is a chilling, disturbing read and the description is part of this hellish situation the characters find themselves in. There are a couple of 'F.....ing' and then eff ing is used instead. I don't think younger readers should read because of the content and because there needs to be a certain level of maturity to handle some of those scenes and the reasons why that word is used. It's a gripping story, really well paced. I even took it down to the O2 yesterday in case the queue for the car park was very long to get out but didn't actually finish it till this afternoon. There are some interesting themes in the book, interesting/scary ideas - many of which are still unravelling. The characters speak in their own dialect which is explicit in the spellings....as the tale is gripping I found I was immediately immersed in this.
The link below gets you to a review by a younger reader which is worth a look. Meanwhile off to library tomorrow to seek out the next 2-be better prepared next time!

http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2012/jul/29/review-knife-never-letting-go-patrick-ness

PS I thought the quote above from Patrick Ness himself rather good :-) Going right from adulthood back down into schools...quiet folk have stuff to say too, they might not want to be right at the front saying it though.

Books are alive and well at Benhall thanks to these talented book makers....

3/7/2014

No stories stolen at Benhall for their book week this week but LOTS of books made for stories, collecting and writing :-) A sweet picture book received from the lovely Random House people by Anca Sandu about some different animal detectives on the trail of mission books for a young prince who can't sleep any more because his bedtime stories have VANISHED. Funny and charming illustrations and a sweet ending with a very valid reason for the books to have gone missing-if I had an assembly to do I may well use it for that reason but that's all I'm going to say because you should read it for yourself. For those VW nuts it also has a little Miss sunshine type van in it too.

Not sure the state of Suffolk schools is entirely down to what's going on in them actually. I've seen so many wonderful pictures of children dressed up for world book day, immersing themselves in imaginative activities this week and in lots of schools on my visits. Here's a selection of tremendous handmade books from Yr 2,3,4 and 5. Bears, beasts, maps and the story shack stamper out in force.

'Long ago, in the days when dragons could still be found, there lived a Viking king."

3/6/2014

That king was King Harald and this is his rather excellent story courtesy of Thomas J.T. Williams and the British Museum. A tale to bring history to life- particularly for those 'Invaders and Settlers' moments in school. This is a really fine read. I wondered whether it would be a bit dry when I first got the copy. Today's children are pretty particular about their visual images or so we assume-they have to be all singing and all dancing to stimulate their interest. I'm not so sure about that though. This the story of how King Harald comes to be... His beginnings as a boy; making his way through what is now Scandinavia+his travels into the colourful Constantinople. The story is a good story-it's not 'forced' to make the history fit in. It is how history was told, in many ways, through story and epic adventures-those tales were handed down to the next generation. In this story we see the boy become the fierce, brave and often cruel King who became known as 'Harald Hard-ruler'. But learning about that time is part of the story-we need to know about how things worked then in order to get more involved in the story. So there are not only beautiful, classic illustrations to the adventure but also black and white hand drawings illustrating the intricate patterns on swords, jewellery drawing in Viking gods, for example. I'm always keen to bring history in to anything at all as I've always loved it, I hope that comes across when I've taught those great themes but I'm also keen not to 'dumb it down' in anyway because we may underestimate our children. I think they like to find out about the past and if it's a good story with feisty facts and artefacts they DO like it. This book tells of a human being's experience and therefore takes them back in to time through a good tale. If you were lucky enough to encompass its reading with a visit to the British Museum's Viking exhibition even better.

Catch a falling star and......

3/1/2014

AAAh lovely lovely reading of 'How to catch a star' by Oliver Jeffers yesterday to a young person in Reception who'd chosen the book in a kind of 'The Voice' READ OFF against 'Stanley's Stick' actually. Started to read Stanley's stick but the star caught the attention and then entranced until the end when he announced he was going to catch a star and put it over my house....what a fantastic way to end the week :-)