Details
I love to visit book festivals and schools, giving presentations and running creative writing workshops for children for both KS1 and KS2.
45 min talk to KS2. Presenting my latest Peng and Spanners graphic novel with powerpoint, drawing and interactive elements.
The talk discusses the characters in the series, the writing process from initial idea to printed book, showing the creative writing, illustrating, editing and design processes, highlighting the differences and challenges writing comic strips present.
There's a song in the middle with volunteers and prizes AND a Pizza Bingo finale!
45 min talk to KS1. Showing my picture books, with particular emphasis on Cows go Boo! and Tanka Tanka Skunk.
Everyone can join in singing, stamping and clapping along to Tanka Tanka Skunk which is a very rhythmic book, emphasising syllables and sound in words. I can then show the children the early drawings and roughs that went into making the finished book.
Volunteers can help act out the story of Cows go Boo! Taking turns to be the farmer and the cows, leaping out from behind a pop-up-banner tree.
Creative writing workshops for smaller groups of around 30.
For KS2: A character based session, discussing the importance of strong characters in fiction and some of the methods I use when developing my own characters. The pupils will then invent a new superhero character of their own and write and draw a short comic strip around this creation.
For KS1: Writing new pages for Tanka Tanka Skunk. Showing the book again, the class suggest animal names of different lengths and rhythms which I will list on a board. Together we will then find words that fit the Tanka Skunk rhythm and add to the book, singing and clapping along to our finished new page. We can then draw some of the new animals and act out Cows go Boo! again so more children can be involved.
