CREATIVE TREASURE CHEST - Years 1 to 7

Activity 1: See, Hear, touch, taste and smell

The notion behind this activity is to help stimulate ideas using the environment around you. This workshop is an outside activity. Listen for 5 minutes. What do you hear? Here we build a story from our environment. Imagine the trees could talk? What would they say? Do the bees you hear buzzing around have secrets? What are they? Then we begin to build a story about the things you have discovered in your environment.

Activity 2: Drawing and Painting

It’s time to start thinking creatively. This activity utilises drawings or paintings as a tool to create a new and exciting character. Will you draw or paint a random object? Or an animal or a toy? You get to choose. Then we build on our understanding of developing aspects of our character.

Activity 3: Real or Imaginary?

It’s time to create a character! Story prompts. Here we look at a stimulus from the real or imaginary world. Real - a mystery package arrives? Imaginary – a dragon, a fairy or some new creature you create? What if you had a secret superpower? Then we learn how to bring them to life in a story.

Activity 4: The world of pictures and photographs

If you had one wish? Using pictures or photographs can help inspire a new story idea. If you add a wish to the picture in front of you, what would that wish be? Pictures or photographs are a great source of stimulus and here we use them to begin to understand, and develop a new type of story.

Activity 5: Complications

Problems or complications in our lives are a good source for developing a story idea. Stories are often about including a complication and then solving a problem. What if you created a time machine? What year would you travel to? What problems would you have living in that time and how would you fix them? This workshop looks at different types of complications or problems we encounter each day so we can begin to build a creative story.

Activity 6: Real life

Our lives are full of interesting real-life stories. A holiday? A day at the beach? Do you own a new pet? Did something happen in your city? What if a tiger mysteriously disappears from your local zoo? How would you find the tiger thieves? New stories can be created from the things we experience or hear about each day. Here we explore our real-life experiences and begin to learn how to create a wonderful story

 Workshops

Writing fantasy

Do you want to escape into a fantastic fantasy world? Writing fantasy can be complex and epic. That's all the more reason to plot your story out first. This workshop teaches children how to adopt a plot structure as a skeleton and lead the way in building a fantasy world scene by scene.
Some topics covered are:
• Main events and how they are connected.
• Characters and why they are there.
• Do you need real-world themes?
We also explore using senses, internal rules and how your world and your characters need to fit together.

How do I come up with ideas?

Do you sit and stare at that blank piece of paper or screen? Can’t think of anything to write? Writer’s block? Ever wondered why? We explore “mind writing” what it is and how it works.
In this workshop, the children will learn about control systems and automatic systems. Together we will do a few exercises on how to capture story ideas. We will also learn how to store those ideas, keep them organised and how to begin to flesh out those ideas.

How to write a story ending

Do your endings fizzle? Don’t play the wishing game with your ending. In this workshop, children will learn how to clean up their ending and not leave it to chance. Together we talk about the questions you need to ask before you start writing. Everything your hero has learned, all the complications that has plunged him or her into rising to the occasion of becoming a hero form your character’s story arc. Endings aren’t resolved by a miracle. Your hero must act. Writers should keep the end in sight the whole way.