The Magical Kingdom Of Boondagilay

In the last half of Term 3 I decided to try something different for writing. We spent a week creating this beautiful mural. I let the students take full control over what they wanted to put on the mural as they were the ones writing about it. They had so much fun and their writing was amazing. Here is the mural.
IMG_0572 (1) from Team 1 PES on Vimeo. I also gave the students a list of adjectives, a list of different words to use instead of the normal words they had been using. For example instead of using the word 'big' they could chose from a list of words - huge, gigantic, enormous etc. Here is the first example. Ryder's writing has ben improving all year but it had started to become very boring.

One month later Ryder's writing about the mural.

 Once upon a time there was a tiny pixie called Elizabeth and she lived in a forest of feathers. One day she saw some small pixies having a party on the petite house. Next she went inside but then suddenly a huge giant was coming to the house. Then all the ten pixies went out of the house and went to the rainbow castle and told the princess that a tremendous giant was coming to the rainbow castle. After that the princess got her brave knights and the knights got their swords and had a fight. Finally the huge giant was killed and they lived happily ever after. Allowing the students to take ownership of the mural and giving them the creative freedom to design what they were going to write about had such a positive influence. It is something I would definitely try again. After they had written their stories, they animated their stories using their i-pads and the mural for their backdrops.