I was really excited to get a call from Mrs Harrison at Waterloo Primary Academy to ask if I’d like to go and visit. The Year 4 children were starting a unit on spooky writing so she wanted me to share some spooky stories and talk about writing creepy tales.
After pulling on the story waistcoat I kicked off the session by sharing Chewed Up from Impossible Tales. It’s one of my favourites and features a pair of false teeth which come to life and hunt down a kid and his gran! I worked in lots of scenes in the dark and tried to build up the suspense and crank up the tension.
After discussing that story and looking at spooky writing strategies, I shared a story about a Halloween prank in an abandoned house. It was the first time out for this story so I was a bit nervous, but the kids seemed to enjoy it.
We then looked at some examples of spooky writing on the interactive whiteboard so the children could ‘magpie’ some vocabulary and language for their writing.
We finished with a Q&A and the children asked lots of great questions, some of them really made me think.
It was a pleasure to share some stories and talk with the 90 Year 4 pupils. I wish them well with their writing and can’t wait to see what they come up with.
Big thanks to Mrs Harrison for organising the session and inviting me in.