Creative Writing Workshop

The author David Gatward came to Fairlop.  We were very lucky to have been chosen to be part of his creative writing workshop along with children from other schools.  We started by writing down all our favourite books and words to describe them on a big sheet of paper, we then thought about what makes a story great and came up with some ideas such as cliff hangers, amazing characters and an exciting plot. David then gave us some story dice with pictures on them, we rolled them and whichever pictures they landed on we had to make up a story and tell it to each other.  He then taught us the four most important things when creating a story: Character, purpose, place and conflict. Finally using lots of ideas, the story dice and other props, we came up with our own ideas for a story – we had to write a three line blurb about it. Now all we have to do is write our stories but we have so me many ideas we can’t wait to get writing!

Jon Klassen

Jon Klassen, Author and Illustrator (The Dark) hosted a live webcast, in which children from Years 4, 5 & 6  listened to him talk about his love of picture books. 

Jon talked about his early career as an animator (which he disliked) and how he then went on to write and illustrate.

The children were transfixed as Jon read to them and then went on to demonstrate how he creates his quirky drawings.

The session ended with the children having a go themselves, producing some wonderful cartoon drawings.