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| Pendragon Manor - a spooky setting with a haunted room |
I led three "dangerous writing" workshops, one with each of the Y3 classes. We talked about peril in adventure stories and warmed up by asking "what could possibly go wrong?" Then we focussed on creating spooky scenes like abandoned schools and dark forests, zooming in on details to bring our readers right into the story. The children in all the classes came up with some brilliant ideas. I hope nobody was too frightened by all the spine-chilling
sights and sounds we came up with.
The children had been reading The Mystery of the Whistling Caves in class, but were only half way through, so I had to be very careful not to give the game away. I hope by now you'll know who the culprit was and whether your guesses were right! They'd also been doing some great mystery writing - including their own research: a visit to the Museum of London to plan a museum theft mystery, just like the one in The Mystery of the Whisting Caves. What an inspired idea! (although I do hope that the museum wardens knew that the children were authors plotting a mystery story and that they weren't really junior criminal masterminds planning their next heist!) In one of the classes there was actually a story in progress on the white board. It looked very exciting!
The whole school joined us for an assembly - including Y1 and Y2, who did a great job of listening and helping to pick objects out of Emily's invesitgation kit.
Thank you to everyone at Alexander McLeod Primary for making me so welcome and for the lovely orchid that the children gave me as a thank you present. It survived two trains and the Northern Line in the rush hour and is now in pride of place in my kitchen.