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
My name is Sluggery-wuggery My name is Worms-for-tea My name is swallow-the-table-leg My name is Drink-the-sea. Pauline Clarke Here is a chance for you to make up names. You could make up names for yourself or for an invented, maybe magical, character. Make a list of all the different names you can think of and … Continue reading Sluggery-wuggery
Words are endlessly fascinating. Naming is so interesting and important. I read recently about a book by John McPhee, The Crofter and the Land. McPhee visited the Hebridean island of Colonsay where his family originated. He discovered that every beach, gully, cliff and rise of land has a name. On a tiny island of only 138 … Continue reading Land Words
In our last post we thought about ways of naming the landscape and parts of the landscape. Here is aa nice frame that you could use to put them to use. Here are some lines from a poem by Ian Macmillan about the walk to school: Down Barking-dog lane past the street with the boat … Continue reading Routes
When we know a place well, we have our own local names for streets and landmarks. In our village, where there is a ‘Front Street’, many people call the parallel street, ‘Back Street’, even though it has a quite different name on the street sign. There is a Mill Road [though the mill no longer … Continue reading Naming the land
Names are important. Making up names can be fun. If you write stories, you may want to have a collection of names just in case you need an idea for a character. The poet, Alistair Reid, tells us that we should be good namers. We may all have to name something from time to time. … Continue reading Names
Here is a game that uses the alphabet, names, places and words. You can play it alone but it is more fun with other people. I used to play this game when I was a little girl and I have played it with many different children ever since. In the game, players take it in … Continue reading The Captain’s Ship
Let’s collect words today. When we begin our Writing Club, we always think of words. Sometimes we each write them down in a list. Sometimes we keep one or two in our head. Then we share our words, one each around the circle. You can collect words in your head, in a list in your … Continue reading Words
Writing Box 