Summer Adventure Stories

When it came time to teaching creative story writing, the Budding Authors and Artists reflected on their summer vacations.  They learned the important skill of story mapping, and then gave a real summer experience a twist of adventure.  Can you tell where Charlotte's (3rd grade) story went from non-fiction to fantasy and creativity?  I hope you enjoy this tall tale as much as I did!

The Fishing Trip
By Charlotte (3rd grade)

     It was a crazy 4th of July last summer.  I went swimming at the White River with my Gramma and Grampa.

      I saw a huge rock, so I swam over to it  It was a long river, so it took me a while to get there.  But I did.  I climbed up the rock.  Then I slid down it.  It was a pretty bumpy ride, but at least it had wet moss on it.

     Suddenly, I saw a witch jump out of the bushes!  She waved her wand at me, and ran away.

     I started glowing in a goldish color.  When I stopped glowing, I was a dragon!  I had a ten foot wingspan.  I was all gold with two spiky horns in the middle of the back of my head, as well as the top of my head.  Then I realized I was a golden dragon!  (I mean like the type of dragon.)  I could breathe anything that's valuable, plus fire!

     My gramma and grampa saw the whole thing.  "Are you okay?" they asked.

     "I'm fine," I said.  "And just to let you know, we're rich.  I can breathe gold and anything valuable."

     My gramma and grampa rode home on me.  (I had to carry the car in my claws.)

     My family got rich because I just made 100,000 diamonds.  My family became famous for having a dragon.

Postcard Stories!

The "Awesome Authors and Artists" class got to use their Backwards Land paragraphs as creative inspiration for a tall tale told in the 1st person narration.  While their "travel brochure" paragraphs were written in the 3rd person, this next assignment was told from the point of view of the author who visited that land.  Some places were delightful and had students reporting wonderful adventures and fun times. Others were terrible and led to awful experiences!  Enjoy these two VERY different vacation reports!

Emma (5th grade) wrote about Yckutnek, a fun town where forgetful people stick to traditions and enjoy music and get-togethers.  It should be mentioned that the police department has some VERY strict rules...

Dear Grandpa,

     Yckutnek is great, but it wasn't too fantastic when I got here!

     First, I got here blindfolded in a wagon.  (They didn't want me to know the way.)  Then when we finally got the hotel, the manager forgot who I was.  The Yekcutnek people are very forgetful.  We were there for hours, and finally they remembered me.  The room was very nice.  I was so tired from the long check-in, I fell asleep on the floor.

     The next morning, I woke up in hail.  It turns out the police got mad at me for sleeping on the floor and not the bed.  Fortunately, the next hour, they let me out.  That morning, I had muffins for breakfast.  A bunch of people came up and met me.  They were very nice.

     After breakfast, I went to play jump rope in the town square.  (That was Monday's activity.)  That night, we danced to traditional Yckutnek music.  The people forget a lot of things here, but they didn't forget their dance moves!

     Things are still going great.  I bought a snow globe of the town for you.  I miss you, and wish you could come.  I don't want to go home!

      Much love,
     Emma

Ritik's (5th grade) Kroy Wen is the complete opposite of New York!  It has a tiny population and is not anything like the exciting city that never sleeps.  Read on, and visit only if you dare!

Dear Ryan,

     I am in the most horrible place in the world: Kroy Wen.

     I got here by a private helicopter because no pilot dares to come here.  The hotel is terrible.  There is mold EVERYWHERE.  The hotel food is so plain.  It was a little serving of rice and water.

     The next day, I decided to go exploring.  I saw a sign that said, "Population: 50."  I hated the people.  They would stand around for twenty minutes, then sit for twenty minutes.  There are weird rules here, like "NO talking allowed!" and "No standing closer than five yards next to someone."  The worst rule is that you CANNOT ever leave!  I learned that rice and water are the only foods.  The only activities are to sleep, stand, sit, run, walk, and eat, unfortunately.  You have to sleep on concrete.  Everyone is forbidden to talk.

     I cannot leave, so please come get me!

     Miserably,
     Ritik

Paragraph Writing: Backwards Land

The "Awesome Authors and Artists" class practiced perfect paragraph writing by writing mini-travel brochures for an imaginary city, state, country, island..... whatever they could imagine!  They were taught how to vary sentence their patterns and focus on subjects like:

~ climate

~ day-to-day life

~ culture

~ type of land

~ animals

And more!

Mrs. Huff's "Florida" turned into "Adirolf...." a winter wonderland with fresh snow in the morning, sunshiny days, and the opportunity to participate in winter sports all year long.  Can you figure out how these students named their places??

Enjoy these paragraphs and book your tickets today!

Eropagnis

by Annika (5th grade)

     Eropagnis is a wonderful, fancy island that is relaxing and unique.  It is fun on the amazing beach side, but very fancy with the latest products all over the place.  Everyone drinks with their pinkies up, showers in the morning, and wakes up by 7:00 AM sharp.  The president is a royal panda, and everyone lives in a mansion.  Eropagnis always welcomes visitors.  It's located on the Equator and Prime Meridian.  Book your flight to Eropagnis today and enjoy and amazing vacation!

 Sirap

By Ashley (3rd grade)

     Sirap is a musical place with beautiful mountains.  Each night, the band will play fun tunes.  Every person in Sirap plays a musical instrument.  When tourists come, they love to dance to the music.  Book your tickets now and boogie with the Sirapians!

Paragraph Writing: Backwards Animals!

The "Budding Authors and Artists" class got to make up their own animals in their imaginations when it came time to learning how to write a paragraph.   We started off by having a fun brainstorming session, where we thought of animal names by spelling real animals forward, then backwards.  Mrs. Huff's flamingo turned into an "Ognimalf," a puffy bird with huge feet and a diet of ice cream cones!  The children were encouraged to create an animal very different from what the forward-spelling animal was like.  They were also given tips on how to vary their sentences to make their paragraph more interesting to read.  After our lesson in sentence writing, many students naturally used phrases that described where and when, and of course, lots of adjectives.  I think they did a fabulous job!  Have fun reading about these exotic creatures!

The Noil Krahs

by Adam (3rd grade)

     The Noil Krahs is an extremely ferocious creature.  It gobbles up juicy people who like to swim the deadliest oceans like the Pacific Ocean, where it lives.  It likes to jump extremely high to keep an eye on anybody who is going to swim.  The Noil Krahs has marvelous eyesight, so it can see very far away.  If anybody is coming close, it can sense them.  It is rare because it lives at the bottom of the sea.  It is a very strong and smart creature, so if you shoot it or play a trick on it, it wouldn't be your lucky day.  A Noil Krahs would be a terrible pet!

 The Retsmah

by Daniel (2nd grade)

     The Retsmah is very hungry.  It eats everything in trees and bushes.  It lives in the middle of the forest.  When it sees people, it conceals itself.  This creature is going to be an amazing pet because it can do anything!

The Tibbar

by Sammie (2nd grade)

     The Tibbar is blue and purple.  It is really sweet.  When it sees people, its hair goes into a braid.  It acts really funny.  The Tibbar gobbles cookies.  Its favorite cookie is rainbow with chocolate chips.  It looks like a puffball.  It flies a lot with its ears, and swims with its ears too.  The Tibbar lives in my desk at school, and has a happy life!

Starting Off With Super Sentences!

"Budding Authors and Artists" (grades 2-3) and "Awesome Authors and Artists" (grades 4-6) recently had lessons in how to write super sentences that create a vivid picture in the mind of the reader.  We started off with a  base sentence (otherwise known as a "boring sentence," containing just the bare minimum noun + verb) and added:
~ 2 adjectives
~ 1 adverb
~ a phrase telling "where"
~ a phrase telling "when"
~ Awesome Authors and Artists also learned how to start a sentence with "Because."  (YES, you can, if it's done right!!)

Once we added all of our details, we experimented with placement.  Many students found their sentences improved by moving their "When" or "Where" to the beginning of the sentence, for example.

Our boring, base sentence was: "The sun shines."  Check out how these students improved them, and made outstanding art projects too!

 The bright shiny sun shines fantastically on the beautiful garden while my mom waters the plants.

Anjalia, 2nd grade

 The yellow, orange, and hot sun shines brightly at noon at the sandy wavy beach.

Taryn, 3rd grade

 "Yesterday, on a terribly hot day, the bright, cheerful sun shone colorfully on a big puffy tree."

Abby, 3rd Grade

 "Because the firey, beautiful sun shines in the light blue sky of the misty morning, the village gets ready for the upcoming day."

Leila, 5th grade

"While dolphins swim happily in the crystal clear ocean, the scorching golden sun shines brightly."

Sofia, 5th grade 

Now that we have mastered sentence writing, we are ready for paragraphs!