There is no colour palette like nature's colour palette. The colours of nature provide us with the perfect opportunity to fine-tune our observational skills and create our own colour charts. You could explore your local area and make colour charts using photographs or real specimens. What about a colour chart for the school field or … Continue reading Colours of Nature
Using a first person narrative, this beautiful picture book works it way through the seasons telling its readers what is special about trees throughout the year. The pages also hold snippets of information which link to the main text. Although it is not technically part of the Nature Storybooks series by Walker Books, it follows … Continue reading The Things That I Love about Trees
Many of us walk the same route every day, it might be the walk to school and back, a trip to the corner shop or the regular dog walk. We may not always take the same route, but we may always go to the same place. The Dutch artist, herman de vries walks in a … Continue reading Walk maps
Walking plays an important part in my writing life. I often draft poems and stories in my head as I am walking. There is something about the rhythm of feet on the earth and eyes looking at the passing scenes that really is helpful. So you could just go for a walk and see what … Continue reading Walk for Writing
If you're not yet familiar with the nature writing of Robert Macfarlane then you should get to know it. Macfarlane is a genius at combining two of my favourite things: nature and words. Not just in prose form but he is also a serious collector of lesser-known words for landscapes and the natural world. In … Continue reading Nature’s words
Keeping a record of what we see around us needs only a few minutes each day. When you look back you can remember all the things that you have learned about the plants and creatures that surround us. In the late eighteenth century Gilbert White kept a Naturalist’s Journal and we can still learn from … Continue reading Timothy the Tortoise
We're going back to nature for the next week... or maybe longer if we really get into our groove. People talk about having a teacher 'toolbox' and all kinds of formulas and tricks for teaching writing, usually involving some complicated acronyms and pretty rigid approaches. Nature is my toolbox! It can provide enough inspiration to … Continue reading Back to nature
They caused no trouble, but their near presence was somehow uncomfortable. Who were they? Where had they come from? Where were they going? Direct questions produced no answers: only a smile, a shrug, a shake of the head. The Wind Singer by William Nicholson It has often been said that three's a crowd but today … Continue reading Rule of three
Pleasure in words, a curiosity about them and an awareness, these seem important to us. Paying attention to individual words when we are reading, writing or moving about in the world is an important and interesting part of becoming a writer. Taking care over the words we choose makes a difference to what we say … Continue reading Word sorting
Pat Hutchin’s wonderful book, Rosie’s Walk, contains one sentence. The sentence has two clauses joined by ‘and’, and thirty-two words. One of the joys of the book is the way the pictures tell a part of the story never mentioned in the words. Rosie the hen walks insouciantly around the farmyard followed by a fox, whose … Continue reading A well-crafted sentence
Writing Box 