FS ICT Writing 2

During Book Week the Pandas worked as a whole class and then, later, in groups to write magical and mysterious stories, stimulated by some of the enigmatic Harris Burdick pictures. We particularly looked at one picture called The Harp. On one day we looked closely at the picture, jotting down any ideas that sprang to mind. On another day we looked back over these ideas and put together a story. The children acted out their story in the hall and then started getting really creative back in the classroom! The role of ICT in this project was to record the work using a digital video recorder borrowed from one of the parents.

We placed the picture, at an angle, in the middle of the art table and built up the scene all around it. The children had decided it was a rainforest. A grandmother of one of the children was currently living in the jungle in Costa Rica and was regularly emailing the class with wonderful descriptions of verdant growth and exciting creatures. A scavenging hunt around the school grounds uncovered where the old Christmas tree had been left and branches were brought back to the class. In the courtyard we found some fossils and crystalline rocks which we decided to 'borrow'. The bag of scrap material was emptied on the floor and any scraps that were 'rainforest colours' were added. The children wanted more rocks along the path of the stream and so out came the clay. A pelican features in their story and a quick search on the Internet found us a suitable picture to add in. One of the children had visited South Africa over the Christmas break and she said we should have big and beautiful butterflies in our rainforest. All the children made finger puppet butterflies, decorating them symmetrically and adding a few sequins for effect.

We used blue material for the sky, fixing it to the window behind the table. When the sun shone through our sky the overall effect was excellent! Parents were dragged in after school to see our rainforest and older children at the school were coming up to me and asking 'What is it your class are all talking about? We don't quite understand, can we come and see?'

Finally we decided to perform our story and video it. One child narrated the story, others used percussion instruments to add sound effects and some flew their butterflies around the rainforest. Click on the butterflies picture to view this video. It is 1.25Mb and so takes a while to download but is worth every second of the wait! (You might need to turn your sound up too!)

To view this video clip you will need to have Windows Media Player installed. Click here to download this.

The story ...

Man Soup

by The Pandas

Once upon a time there was a man and he was walking in a dark and spooky, tropical rainforest. Far away he heard some soft and smooth music and he decided to go and see what it was.

It turned out there was a harp on a rock on the other side of a river. It was being played by some invisible, underwater, bad fairies.

The man found a bridge and started to cross it. It was a magic bridge and when he got to the middle of it it went CRASH!, down under the water.

The bad fairies took the man to their rock castle under the water and put him in a cage. They planned to make MAN SOUP!

Suddenly, a pelican dived in the water, got the keys and passed them through the bars of the cage to the man. He unlocked the cage, climbed on the back of the pelican and the pelican carried him off to safety.

The bad fairies had to eat vegetable soup after all!

To find out more about the Harris Burdick pictures and to see some examples of other schoolwork inspired by them you might like to visit some of the following sites.

The Chris Van Allsburg Teacher Resource File

The Mysteries of Harris Burdick � 4 stories

Beginnings of Stories