Making Christmas Cards

I usually make a range of Christmas Cards early in October. Providing me with a selection to hand out to colleagues, friends and family at that festive time of year.

This year it was December before I knew it and I was making cards with my class. We used a range of left of pieces from previous years and I posted samples that I had been their inspiration. The challenge was the children then had to make their own version mixing up the ideas.

The range help to cater for all the different abilities in our hub and the mixing of ideas gave children who I had worked with before the opportunity to challenge themselves. Although this year I did very little to help them. Once they had made 3 cards they could go a step further and try one that also left the recipient with a tree decoration.


Everyone found this a little trickier keeping all the pieces still, trying to hold the ribbon straight, giving yourself enough ribbon to go around the first bead and then add a little more to create the illusion of a tree. But we did it we made 25 in an hour. Most people start from the bottom of the tree we started from the top using a double over hand knot so the decoration could hang on the tree.

We then pushed the string and knot through a star shaped bead (to hide the knot).

Each turn we added more ribbon. After about 8 beads we stopped. and tied them off using 2 single over hands..

The finished product on silver cards made the decoration stand out. We we attached using double sided tape, so it was easy to pull off.

Then I challenged myself, I love the idea of love hope joy and peace all through the year but at Christmas time especially to I thought how to best represent this. I looked at a lovely wooden decoration with a heart, anchor and cross that I received when I was younger. To get the heart and anchor to stay in shape I would need a wire (which I didn't have). So I  tried the cross.

CRL - City Rail Link

Following the brief sent from the City Rail Link Project under the theme ‘Imagine where you’d like to go on a train’.  We could use any art medium (paint, felt-tips, etc) we wish but they wanted the artworks to be bright.

We have been working to create different destinations we would like to visit possibly by train.  we experimented with pastels and paint then water colour pencils which was the final medium we decided to go with.

Here is our mock up of the possible final piece...

 

Art Alley Update

Originally the fence was green on one side and grey on the other and many of our students come through the alley to get to school. Once our new school build has been completed this alley will be close to the visitors car park and so we though we would brighten it up.

Here you can see us starting to make improvements using stripes, the colours from the new school logo.

Plot more than telling a Good Yarn.

Reality often seems to have no rhyme or reason in fiction you can shape it, giving events patterns and meaning.

Classic Story Structure

Classic Story structure includes the beginning, the middle and an end.

Beginning

The beginning is where you introduce the audience to the setting, characters and the situation. It often ends with a something catchy to draw the reader in. A dramatic turning point, upsetting the routine everyday things (status quo) and sets the story in motion. The beginning of the crisis/dilemma or problem forces the characters to grow, changing direction and take action.

Middle

This is the longest part of the story.Characters pass through a series of events, complications or obstacles that increase the intensity. This causes tension to rise and fall building toward the BIG climax.

Climax happens after a dark point for the protagonist, pulling them self to triumph and employing what they have learnt, or it could be a downfall when they are feeling at the highest point.

The goal the hero is trying to reach could be irrelevant, and they may find the real goal is beyond what they first thought. E.g. The student may want to get past the bully and arrive at school. The ultimate goal could be to achieve at school but this isn't happening when you can't get to school safely. This realisation is the  mid point of the story not the moment of climax, a shift in direct creating more tension.

End

The end is a short section the pulls all the pieces after the climax to together, tying up lose ends.

Character Arcs

This is for more able writers, as they begin to show how a character grows through the story both emotionally and possibly physically (Grows from being 5 to 7 years of age). This change is called the character arc.

In the beginning of the story the character doesn't know things about himself. The character may think they are not strong, through events the character may realise to be strong doesn't mean you have to have muscles. The first turning point shakes up their beliefs helping the story and character to change course.

The middle of the story is the learning and growing section of the story for the character building to the climax. Where the character uses what they know and have learnt.

By the end the character has grown and changed their is a new equilibrium, way or the character could be defeated and completely disillusioned.

Of course the characters path should not be easy, they need to struggle toward the goal as each new challenge raises the stakes.

Painting Alley Fence 2 - Art Alley

Phase one 

Started last year when we designed murals for four of the panels and column pictures for the individual boards on the wooden fence. This took a long time as the group wanted detailed pictures.

Phase two

We also did in 2017 undercoating the fence so we had a white platform to paint onto so our murals were the colours we wanted.

Phase three: 

We started this year painting the panels so we could display what we as an art group liked, favourite foods, places, patterns, labels, games, and even family. Unfortunately we then had a mishap with the fence and we had to redo some areas.

Phase Four: 

We wore our cool new uniforms to school but got changed into an old set of clothes, some of us brought our old uniform. No way did we want paint on our new uniforms.

Krystal Leigh  - My fingers ended up blue, and I seemed to have more paint on me that on the fence. Strangely my teacher wasn't too happy. But I had fun. When we added the dark blue around paint splashed it started to look much better.

Demetrius P - I thought it was cool painting the poles red, but we had to be careful not to get it on people or what they were painting and that was not easy.

Amelia - I was painting the background for the hibiscus flower in green. It was cool to see the flower take shape even through we weren't painting the flower yet. We took our time to make sure the paint was in the right place, the boys seemed to be in a hurry.

Steven - I enjoyed spending the whole day painting and not working. I painted the poles red there seemed to be a lot of them and we still have 3 more to do. It was even better when Auntie Jess came and helped us.

Shawn - Painting the fence was fun as we didn't have to do school work. When Auntie Jess helped us she thought it would be funny to paint her hand yellow and add it to my shirt. The worst part was when we painted and the drips went in the wrong place.

Painting the Alleyway Fence

Our Community is Home Project.

 Whanākitanga wanted to brighten up the Alleyway to Lelani Ave.

We have been waiting for Sunny Thursday Mornings to brighten up the Alleyway Fence. We have designed a series of murals for the corrugated iron fence and for the wooden panel fence we designed individual panels to represent a range of children and what is important in their lives.

For the wooden fence we thought about what makes us unique, our families, cultural and likes. We looked at our favourite food, games, books, places, clothes, patterns that represent our culture and or family. We experimented with different colours to best represent our images and backgrounds for them to stand out on.

For the iron fence we thought about images that represent the various cultures in our school. Our new logo, our school values, myths and legends. This side of the fence doesn't see a lot of sun in the mornings so hopefully we will get some sunny days so we can paint our murals in the afternoon.

Dialogue is a Strong Weapon

Great dialogue or direct speech can make your writing efortlessly dynamic, funny and layered with meaning.

It is important to keep conversation natural, relevant and flowing. If it is stilted, unnatural or dull readers will cringe.

   

Importance of Dialogue

• Dialogue helps build characteristics
• Communicates information to the reader
• Speeds the story along.

Tight Dialogue

Gets the readers attention - An interesting piece of dialogue can start your novel rather than a slower description.

Brings Characters to Life - Dialogue helps to bring characters to life by showing their personality, their background, social status, education, the era they grew up in, mood and motivation through vocabulary, manner of speech as much as content.

To create Mood and Feeling - Dialogue can be charged with high emotion, portray feeling, sets atmosphere and helps the reader to empathize or dislike characters.

Move the Story along - Dialogue can rewind or remind readers of information they may have forgotten, or to inform them of what they need to know without lumps of exposition, lengthy description of an idea or theory.

Add Wit and Humour - Some characters are a delight to listen to, witty, foolish or outrageous. These conversation can be used to liven up a page.

Produce Conflict between Characters - Dialogue can contain a flaming argument or finely nuanced conversation full of bitterness, resentment, or innuendo to add crackle.

Create a sense of Time and Place -  People from different eras, locations speak quite differently. A Scot does not speak like a Kiwi (New Zealander). Vocabulary can establish where the story is set.

Pace your Story -  Dialogue speeds up pace making it feel less dense and due to the way set out less intimidating.

The amount of dialogue you use depends on personal style some like more, aim for a good balance or narration and dialogue.

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Looking at Speech Tags.

The reader should never be confused about who is saying what. Use he/she said to clarify economically maybe at the beginning of a conversation after that no need to the tags.

You can position speech tags at the beginning, middle or end; mix it up with action and description. The reader needs to know who is talking without thinking about it.

A long paragraph of speech, put the speech tag near the beginning. If you leave it to the end the reader has no idea who is speaking.

Avoid pretentious or over elaborate speech tags; he protested, she exclaimed, gushed as they appear like the writer is trying too hard.

Mural Painting

This piece of art was started 3 years ago inspire by a piece our leader found in Pinterest. I thought I would recreate with the junior art group. That is 5 to 7 year olds. I was a great challenge. We started by looking at a range of Pasifika and Maori patterns to incorporate the diverse cultural mix of our school. After sketching and more sketching of a range of patterns we all picked our favourite one to take to the next step.

Using strips of card we drew our patterns then tried to use shade to colour over our pattern. We used blue and green to represent the local area of Pukekiwiriki, RedHill, Papakura.

The children then helped to create a large paper version so we had an idea of how it would look. Then we started to paint 3 full size plywood boards. The younger ones had fun with the undercoat and the older ones choose to paint between the lines for the yellow outline. This was working well while we had an empty classroom. The the builders arrived and started to pull down the old buildings.

I was so inspired I create a miniature canvas version using oil paints for a friends new home in Pahi. Starting with a colour pencil copy. Before moving onto canvas. Where I fine tuned the shading from one side to the other, rather than the light being the middle of each section.


So the last couple of years we have been working during holidays and after school to complete the detail. Then students were excited to be adding the final coat of protection. On Thursday 16 August, the 3 pieces were unveiled to the school before being put up on the outside of the hall as part of re-branding of RedHill School.

Unveiling in the hall

When asked to create a grey and red image for our school web page this is what happened...

Inspired by Raewyn Harris Teacher and Artist

Children's ideas on Characterisation

As a class we looked at the Protagonist and Antagonist and the differences in how they might behave. Although some antagonist can pretend creating an interesting twist to the story. (Which we have not yet looked at.) We did discussed that some characteristics can cover both sets of characters such as; hair, eye and skin colour, clothing and personality.

 

  

Characterisation

When writing the author needs to know their characters inside and out, or they will seem to thin and unreal, acting only because the plot requires it.

I found one easy way to keep track of the characters in my novel were to record in a note book all the features and ways they affected due to a weakness or how it made them stronger after each set back. This way it was easy to consult as they faced the next challenge.

When writing I wanted to share everything I knew about a character. But the more I read the more I notice that we are feed small amounts of each character every-time they are portrayed in a story.

Writing Basics

Most students are familiar with writing using 'I' but they possibly haven't been taught it is first person. This is something I am aiming to correct this year during my teaching. I am planning on showing and encouraging students to use third person. By explaining it is like telling someone what occurred in a movie or favourite television program.

We wrote both first person and third adapting fairy tales then we made up a story about a plant.
Here are so examples of what the students in my class came up with.

Third Person:

A little while after they moved into the house. It was a very old house, it had an attic in the high pitched roof and a cellar under the ground. Coraline's family didn't own all of the house it was too big for that. Instead they owned part of it. There were other people who lived in the old house. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible lived in the flat below Coraline’s. On the ground floor they were both old and round, and they lived in their flat with a number of ageing highland terriers who had names like Hamish and Andrew and Jock. - Krystal

She called, “Hello.”

No one answered. She could smell some hot butter chicken in the cottage. Goldilocks called out again.Then she saw three chairs, an oval wooden table and three bowls. One was small, the second one was medium and one last was big. Her tummy growled. The delicious aroma too much for her. She took a bite. The first was too hot, the second one was cold and the third one was perfect. - Justyce

The long snake like path led to a small house with a roof made out of branches. The walls made out of brick and it was a gloomy day, so she went inside the house. Smelling the scent of sweet porridge as she looked at the bowls on the table. She tried the first bowl that she saw.

“YUCK it’s too cold,” Goldy said.

So she went to the next bowl and tried the porridge.

“AHH IT BURNS,” she said as she ran round and round. - Dante

First Person:

I was so sad my Step Mother and my Step Sisters went to the ball, leaving  me at home, cleaning up and cooking. ‘When do I get to go to the ball?’ I wondered. - Krystal

I was planted in a bottomless pit. I was freezing, I got planted without anything, no

water, sunlight or nutrients. It felt like I was in a chilli bin, it was that pitch black. Did I mention it was wet, because it has raining for hours. Until I got the sun over me, then  finally I was getting a bit warmer every minute. - Te Iriwhiro

I was so lonely in the pitch black soil. My mean owner never came to water me the only one who watered me was the clouds.

“Oh dear what is going on here.” I wondered to myself. “I can finally move around and relaxed.” - Breeze

“ OUCH!!!” I said.

“ Who was that And why do I feel trapped, enclosed” I wondered.

“Hmmm what to do,” I thought. “Uhhh I'll just wait.”

4 days later…

“ I'm tired of waiting, I'm going  to push myself out”.

“I'm finally free. OMG I feel so good, stretched out.”

“Woh, I am growing, out of this tiny shell. - Dante

I was a lonely seed in a pitch black hole. I had no friends. When I was buried I was watered. But right now I'll  stay put right here to be watered again.

The next day I got watered. Now I looked at myself there was something appearing out of me.

The next day I figure out what it was. It was my roots.

A few days later I grew a shoot. I wish I knew what would happen to me next.

“Would I stay like this? Or would I grow more?” - Akram

Perspective

We are learning how to use different perspective to help make our story writing more interesting. We wrote both first person and third adapting fairy tales then we made up a story about a plant.
Here are so examples of what the students in my class came up with.

Third Person:

A little while after they moved into the house. It was a very old house, it had an attic in the high pitched roof and a cellar under the ground. Coraline's family didn't own all of the house it was too big for that. Instead they owned part of it. There were other people who lived in the old house. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible lived in the flat below Coraline’s. On the ground floor they were both old and round, and they lived in their flat with a number of ageing highland terriers who had names like Hamish and Andrew and Jock. - Krystal

She called, “Hello.”
No one answered. She could smell some hot butter chicken in the cottage. Goldilocks called out again. Then she saw three chairs, an oval wooden table and three bowls. One was small, the second one was medium and one last was big. 
Her tummy growled. The delicious aroma too much for her. She took a bite. The first was too hot, the second one was cold and the third one was perfect. - Justyce

The long snake like path led to a small house with a roof made out of branches. The walls made out of brick and it was a gloomy day, so she went inside the house. Smelling the scent of sweet porridge as she looked at the bowls on the table. She tried the first bowl that she saw.
“YUCK it’s too cold,” Goldy said.
So she went to the next bowl and tried the porridge. 
“AHH IT BURNS,” she said as she ran round and round. - Dante

First Person:

I was planted in a bottomless pit. I was freezing, I got planted without anything, no 

water, sunlight or nutrients. It felt like I was in a chilli bin, it was that pitch black. Did I 
mention it was wet, because it has raining for hours. Until I got the sun over me, then 
finally I was getting a bit warmer every minute. - Te Iriwhiro

I was so sad my Step Mother and my Step Sisters went to the ball, leaving  me at home,
cleaning up and cooking. 
‘When do I get to go to the ball?’ I wondered. - Krystal

“ OUCH!!!” I said.
“ Who was that And why do I feel trapped, enclosed” I wondered.
“Hmmm what to do,” I thought. “Uhhh I'll just wait.”
4 days later…
“ I'm tired of waiting, I'm going  to push myself out”.
“I'm finally free. OMG I feel so good, stretched out.”
“Woh, I am growing, out of this tiny shell.  - Dante

I was so lonely in the pitch black soil. My mean owner never came to water me the only one who watered me was the clouds. 
“Oh dear what is going on here.” I wondered to myself. “I can finally move around and relaxed.” - Breeze

I was a lonely seed in a pitch black hole. I had no friends. When I was buried I was watered. But right now I'll stay put right here to be watered again. 
The next day I got watered. Now I looked at myself there was something appearing out. 
The next day I figure out what it was. It was my roots. 
A few days later I grew a shoot. I wish I knew what would happen to me next. 
“Would I stay like this? Or would I grow more?” - Akram

Writing a Narrative

Writing a narrative seems a logical next step for children who have been writing recounts of their own experiences. They just have to add some imagination to their story. Children are full of imagination so this should be easy right?

We have been reading Wonder by RJ Palacio.

As we have been reading we have found a range of figures of speech used. One of my favourite is hyperbola or exaggeration. Everyone's heard the story of the fish that got away it was too big to fit in the boat anyway.

Wonder is no exception Auggy talks about knowing every brick on the street. And we wondered every brick, does he mean that makes a fence? That is a lot of bricks. So every brick for every house WOW!

The reaction to using exaggeration has been positive. The children even wrote the worst pizza stories ever. Here are some examples of their exaggeration.


In front of me was the most disgusting, horrible pizza on burger buns. It would put me off my food for life. On top of the bun was pineapple, cheese, BBQ sauce, onions, sliced frankfurters and the worst part about it was the wiggly worms in hot sauce and chicken feat. I covered my mouth to stop my stomach churning. - Amelia

Then our teacher changed her smile grew wicked, the gleam in her eyes was scary. I waited for my pizza. The smell of the pizza drifted my way. Mmm..mm it smells yummy, but not when I saw my friends pizza with worms in it I was about to vomit.  When I got my pizza it had chicken feet in my pizza, I am never going to eat pizza again. - Krystal Leigh.

My puku was rumbling I had never been so hungry. I gathered my plate of pizza. As I stepped out the door my pizza fell on the ground. I couldn't believe the speed of the ants covering the bun. I picked them up to flick off the ant only to find the tiniest rocks stuck in the cheese. I was so hungry I did not want to tell anybody that I'd dropped my pizza. I took a bite and felt the rocks grating against my teeth. I dry reached. I'll never look at a pizza the same way again. - Braedyn

When I had the pizza on my plate I was about to taste it but I saw something moving inside the pizza. I wanted to vomit. It had worms in hot sauce and chicken feet too. Ugh! I looked away from my pizza I had never seen something so disgusting. - Mariah

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