Home Education: Tell Me A Dragon

Often at bedtime Bea and I read a book

Tell Me a Dragon by Jackie Morris

At the end of the book

Bea always tells me in great detail

About her dragon

I have been thinking for ages

It would make a great creative writing and art activity

And today I made that happen

As part of our new Monday morning initiative

Monday Imaginings

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This morning I read Esther, William and Bea

Tell Me A Dragon

In this enchanting book

Jackie Morris conjures a world where everyone has their own dragon

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Exploring all their variety

Through lyrical text and beautiful illustrations

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It is a magical book

And a joy to read out loud

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After reading the book

And looking closely at the pictures

The children drew and coloured their dragons

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All the while talking to each other

Thinking about what their dragon would be like

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After a while of drawing and talking

We came together to do some shared writing

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We thought about what we would say about our dragons

How we might describe them

What features we could include

Size

Colour

Diet

Habitat

Personality

Magical powers

We talked about descriptive writing

Lyrical writing

And thought about the use of simile

Together we composed a description of a rainbow dragon

One of Bea’s many ideas

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After the shared composition

The children had a little more thinking and drawing time

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Then Esther and William had 30 minutes writing time

To tell me about their dragon

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William loved this task

And kept excitedly telling me so

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Esther enjoyed it too

But needed more support with the writing

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She had a good go at independent writing

But did need input from me

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We then worked together to extend and improve her writing

After the timed write was done

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This was the first time we have done something like this

All three of the children loved it

They adore being read to

They love drawing and being imaginative together

And today

Esther and William really enjoyed their writing too

I think our Monday Imaginings will become a regular thing

Next I want to use Rebecca Cobb’s The Something

The children have asked to draw and describe more dragons

So tomorrow we are going to read How To Catch A Dragon

To inspire some dragon sketching, painting and poems

I cannot wait!

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Our books at breakfast will all be dragon themed tomorrow

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And Edie is not missing out either

As I made her a dragon themed book basket

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Such a wonderful way to start our week

Monday Imaginings

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And soon our Mondays will feature Messy Maths too

Today was a good Home Ed day

Which books do you use to inspire art and writing?

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