Categories: News and Events
      Date: Apr  6, 2015
     Title: Year 3 Students' Additional Characters

Recently I visited Year 3 students who were learning to write and illustrate a story.  I completed TWO workshops with these students - one on how I developped the story, and the other on how the illustrations were created.

After the first visit, students were asked to research an Australian animal Mrs Echidna could have met as she waddled through the bush, and add their character to the book. Here are their stories...

Thestudents were asked to consider:

• Where does the animal live? (habitat)
• What would the animal have been doing (action)
• Would it be a friend or foe (predator)?
• How would it respond to Mrs Echidna? (personality)
• What advice would the animal give Mrs Echidna?

They then wrote about 4 sentences adding their character to the book. Here are some samples of the responses:

1.Mrs turtle swam in from the sea with her strong flippers. "Where do you keep your eggs?" cried Mrs Echidna. "I keep my eggs under the sand," answered Mrs Turtle. "That sand is too hot for my eggs!" cried Echidna. (Malayah)

2.The dingo was rolling on its back. "Well, I put my baby underground." "It's too warm down there," said Mrs Echidna. (Jourdan)

3.Koala was snoring in the gum tree. She woke up with a start and grumbled, "I carry my baby on my back!" "My back is too spiky," snapped Mrs Echidna. (Jacob)

In preparing their stories, they researched the habitat and habits of the animals, and prepared them on their iPads.  What a great job they did!