Room 14 Story Workshop

Many classrooms at our school have been running Story Workshops this year. This is based on an idea that myself and several other teachers witnessed in another school during a professional development trip last year. The concept of Story Workshop is driven by us exploring the role of the arts in literacy. See some of the other Bromley School class blogs for information about how it has been used in their contexts.

In Room 14, we have used an adaptation of this concept to generate the 'spark' for stories we are currently writing. Today all of us were given time (all morning) and choice when moving around different stations. Although some prompts have been provided for the children to help with initial thoughts, it has been interesting to see that very few children have stuck with the obvious ideas present in these prompts, taking inspiration and opting to go in a completely different direction. This may be because moving around a number of stations helped to bring more ideas together.

Engagement has been great, with many children already planning and drafting their ideas, with the goal of writing a chapter book they can be proud of. We have constantly been referring to the idea that we are authors, taking ownership of our stories and self-monitoring our writing to a high standard.

Our video shows the first session, until our morning tea break.



Keep an eye on our Twitter and USpace accounts for more information about our stories as they are created.

Visitor - Kevin Honeycutt

We were very lucky this Friday to have a speaker who has come all the way from Kentucky in the US. Kevin took a group of senior children from our Friday rotation guitar and science groups for a special session in our library. 

He shared some cool ideas for learning music using iPads and other technology, which we were intrigued by and can't wait to experiment with ourselves. 

It is amazing how fast technology is moving and the seemingly limitless potential we have for learning and creative expression.