You probably know the furniture game and it is fun to play. I have played it as a guessing game and as a way of thinking about an individual. Think of someone you know well and then think about them in terms of any number of things. Answer the question: ‘if they were a [insert … Continue reading The Furniture Game
Tag: lists
My Place
‘People exploitwhat they have merely concluded to be of value, but the defendwhat they love and to defend what we love we need a particularizing language, for we love what we particularly know.’ Wendell Berry Robert Macfarlane quotes Berry in his book Landmarks, drawing attention to the moral dimension of looking closely and naming carefully. We could begin … Continue reading My Place
Technical Terms
You may have already found that you need to know more about flowers or birds or slugs or insects to help you identify them. Sometimes the difference between one tree and another is down to the shape of a leaf or the colour of a bud. It can be tricky! In order to use an identification … Continue reading Technical Terms
Map it out
It is World Earth day tomorrow. Last year we showed you how to make pop-up books to celebrate. This year you could make a map fold book and use it to record your local area. Choose quite a small area -maybe you have a playground or a playing field; maybe you could map out the … Continue reading Map it out
The Thingness of Things
Today's posts inspired by Robert Macfarlane's book, Landmarks, and there will be more to come. Landmarks is about language and landscape. It contains wonderful glossaries and a great deal about the naming and thereby conserving the natural world. Children love to be outdoors and so this is a chance to write outside, to look carefully … Continue reading The Thingness of Things
Q & A
I was daydreaming, this morning, about the kind of things that children really love to write. I thought that there is nothing like a clip board -and a list of names. For very young children, writing out a register is the best fun. Then you can go around the class asking an important question like ‘crisps … Continue reading Q & A
Another kind of list
We’re back to lists today and we are thinking about characters at the same time. Ann Berthoff writes: ‘Lists are composed; they don’t just happen.’ Composing a list involves organising names and sometimes actions according to some purpose. The act of list writing can even be a way of discovering purpose. One thing can lead … Continue reading Another kind of list
Colour chart
In our last post, we wrote about colour comparisons. Today, we are going to make up names for colours. It is a similar activity. Think about a paint chart, or the names for lipstick colours or the colours of cars. We make up all kinds of phrases to suggest a colour: strawberry blush; dead salmon; … Continue reading Colour chart
Tittle Tattle
It’s a word collecting day. I have younger children in mind, but we all love words that sound well in the ear. There is always room for a list of words. Once you start writing them down, more spring to mind and before you know it you have a story or a poem, a song … Continue reading Tittle Tattle
Onery twoery
You may have made a list of words that sound like each other and like to go around in pairs [see Tittle Tattle, January 20th2021). That list will come in handy if you would like to compose a counting or a counting out rhyme. Here’s one from the Caribbean: Abna Babna Lady-Snee Ocean potion Sugar … Continue reading Onery twoery
Writing Box 