TR&W Issue 20

24 | www.teachwire.net CREATE A PICTURE STORY Throughout the book there are lovely comic-style picture sequences that tell their own little story. Point out the way the illustrator draws little ‘action lines’ to show movement in the artwork. As a class, talk about simple stories, or sequences from a story, that could be shown this way. Some ideas could be: • A leaf falls from a tree, flutters down, then lands on someone’s head. • A flying bird drops a worm, which lands on someone’s fancy hat. • A wizard touches a pumpkin with a wand, there’s a big bang, then the pumpkin turns into a box of treasure. • A cat is asleep, a mouse comes out of his hole and eats the cat’s food, then runs back to his hole. Next, ask children to decide on a simple story they could tell in this way and think about how many boxes they will need to tell it in – no more than five. Children should also think about the size of each box, using the book as a reference – some smaller and Take it further became such good friends? • Did you enjoy the story? Did you like the way it ended? • Have any members of the class ever seen a puppet show – what was the story being told? Creating your own characters Give everyone a sheet of A4 paper and provide each table with plenty of scrap papers of different colours, patterns and textures – newspapers, magazines, craft paper scraps etc., and any scrapbox materials available. Tell the children they’re each going to design a puppet. Give instructions that they should first draw a head, then a separate body, upper and lower arms, upper and lower legs, hands and feet. Next, pupils should cut out each body part and place them on their sheet of paper to look like a puppet, leaving a little gap between each section before glueing them in place. The children should join the puppet sections Book topic Again, have an example ready relating to your own puppet. A starter for children could be: Hello! My name is ..... and I am a puppet. I am a (boy/girl/fairy/ super-hero) and I am very good at ..... I have (big eyes/a button nose/curly hair) and live with (child’s name). One day I would like to ..... Follow-up lesson Children will now have acquired quite a lot of information they can use to help them build a puppet story. Refer the class back to the book, thinking about the way the puppet was described when Sylvester put him together: ‘He used thin wire and tweezers to put together a leg and then another leg. One was longer than the other; one had a very wobbly knee joint. One was dark wood; one was light. He added feet: one with a black boot, one with a brown. He found a pair of arms, one of them with powerful-looking muscles. One hand had the full four fingers, the other only three.’ Discuss how the children’s story could begin, e.g. ‘Puppet woke up one morning feeling...’ together with a connecting line drawn with felt tipped pen, to look like a puppet’s joints. (Children can look at the pictures in the book for reference.) Remind pupils to be careful not to draw their puppet’s body parts too large, but if some sections overlap the paper a bit that’s okay. The children can use any of the scrap papers and materials to decorate their puppet, remembering that Sylvester’s puppet was wonky, with a finger missing and mis-matched legs, so they don’t need to aim for perfection. Pupils can finish their craft project by giving their puppet a name. It’s a good idea to have a pre-made puppet picture before starting this activity, so that the children can use it as a reference. Simplify this activity for younger children, by asking them to make just a puppet face using a paper plate and craft materials, giving their puppet a name in the same way. Constructing a puppet story Working as a class, ask for volunteers to share their puppet creations, telling the class their puppet’s name and a bit about them. Is it a friendly puppet, does it have super-powers, is it shy or maybe a bit of a show-off? It’s a nice idea for teacher to start this activity by sharing their own puppet with the class and telling everyone about its personality. Go on to write some of the information shared by the class on the board – puppets’ names, appearance, anything special they can do, personalities, etc. Next, ask children to write a description of their puppet on a separate sheet of paper – eventually this will be used to accompany their puppet picture as a wall display. Ask children to write in the first person, explaining the description should read as if the puppet is talking about itself.