BLOG TOUR (13) Princess Clown Workshop Ideas

Princess Clown
written by Sheryl Gwyther
illustrated by Sian Naylor
Blake Education Pty Ltd Australia (2010)
Gigglers Blue Set 2


Princess Clown is a chapter book for 7-8 year olds. It's the story of Belle, a princess who wants more than anything to be a clown. But the trouble is, she's supposed to act like a real princess. When her mother, the queen, frowns at Belle for wearing a red nose, Belle observes, 'Nobody is ever any fun around this castle.'
And it's true, it seems poor Princess Belle can never do anything right. Then, Belle does the one thing that no one else could do. She makes Prince Alan laugh.

This delightful story lends itself to a variety of workshopping possibilities: (1) following a maze (In a full sized version you may like to include more guiding illustrations!); (2) various sequencing tasks; and (3) an opportunity to act out the story. I have chosen the first two to help children internalise the sequence of the story before venturing into acting it out.

...Princess Clown is perfectly suited to being acted out as a classroom play. For example, apart from the main characters, there could be an endless number of courtiers and maids with non-speaking parts who might imitate the stance or facial expressions of the other characters.

1. READ THE STORY


2. TRACE THE MAZE
[Note: If you would like a larger version of the maze, please email me]
  .   .   .   .   .   .   .Guide the princess through the maze to find Prince Alan

3.  PUT THESE IN THE RIGHT ORDER
(1).  Prince Alan laughed and laughed.
(2).  Forgetting she still wore the clown trick ring, Belle shook his hand
(3).  Royal princesses don't wear yellow and red shoes with fake flowers
(4).  A royal princess should never wear a frizzy orange wig under her circlet
(5).  A royal princess should never juggle peaches
(6).  'No,' said the King, 'I think you could be both a royal princess and a royal clown.'
(7).  Then, in a perfect somersault and stretch, she caught the crown.
(8).  A royal princess should never pull coins from people's ears.




4.  ACT OUT THE STORY
Suggestions:
Let the class take as much responsibility as possible.
Go through the characters (in order of appearance) Princess Belle; the Queen; Master Brown; the Royal Cook; the King; the King and Queen of Danzania, and Prince Alan.
Talk about what kind of person each character is: kind, gentle, mean, short-tempered, prim and proper etc.
Add extras (courtiers, maids, gardeners etc) so that anyone wishing to be in the play has a part.
Remind children the importance of the audience. They are the ones who will see the play as a whole. Their responses give the players that extra energy that lifts any performance.


5.  JUST FOR FUN: For brave teachers (and children!)
Take  the clown face below apart and rebuild for a 'tell and draw' version of the story

Thank you Sheryl, for letting me play with your charming story: Princess Clown

To purchase a copy of Princess Clown: http://www.blake.com.au/Gigglers-Blue-2-Princess-Clown-p/9781741646481.htm

Sheryl's Writing blog http://sherylgwyther.wordpress.com/
Sheryl's Kids' blog http://sherylgwyther4kids.wordpress.com/
Website: http://www.sherylgwyther.net/

Tomorrow Sheryl has her official book launch in Brisbane. Congratulations, Sheryl and all good wishes for a spectacular day! I'm sure Sheryl will be sharing the highlights with us via her blog in the next day or two, so don't forget to check it out at http://sherylgwyther.wordpress.com

To review the entire blog tour
06 July Tuesday Dee White – Tips on writing chapter books http://deescribewriting.wordpress.com/
07 July Wednesday Rebecca Newman (Alphabet Soup magazine) http://soupblog.wordpress.com/
08 July Thursday Robyn Opie http://www.robynopie.blogspot.com/
09 July Friday Catriona Hoy http://catrionahoy.blogspot.com/
10 July Saturday Kat Apel katswhiskers.wordpress.com
11 July Sunday Sheryl Gwyther 4 kids http://sherylgwyther4kids.wordpress.com/
12 July Monday Sandy Fussell http://sandyfussell.blogspot.com/
13 July Tuesday Sally Murphy http://www.sallymurphy.blogspot.com/
14 July Wednesday Claire Saxby http://letshavewords.blogspot.com/
15 July Thursday Mabel Kaplan HERE

Thank you for visiting. Please leave a comment!

WHAT STORIES DO YOU TELL YOUR CHILDREN

Story tellers All!
A Cautionary Tale: Watch what stories you tell your children.

For those of you working with story in community, I recently came upon an interesting study on how the themes emerging in family stories changed according to which parent was doing the telling and the gender of the child being told. [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2294/is_2000_Sept/ai_71118807/]

Story telling as a family activity provides a window into important themes of group membership such as intimacy, power, and individual responsibility. As an activity, family stories are an opportunity to share family values and lessons in growing up and aids in the construction of meaning and understanding of the social world.

Parents were asked to tell their son or daughter stories about when the parent was growing up. Stories were coded for the strength of affiliation, achievement, and autonomy themes. Fathers told stories with stronger autonomy themes than did mothers, and sons were more likely to hear stories with themes of autonomy than were daughters. An interaction was found between gender type of parent and gender of child for strength of achievement theme. Family stories are one aspect of socialization that includes an interaction between child and parent characteristics.

It is interesting to note that the study also suggested that, through narratives, mothers may socialize emotion differently to boys and girls. In recounting past events, mothers were more likely to tell stories of anger to their sons and stories of sadness to their daughters A general finding suggests females tend to frame experiences along lines of affiliative themes and males tend to frame experiences along lines of achievement. Themes of affiliation and achievement play an important part in the development of personal identity.

This study focused on how the way parent's tell their children family stories may be one avenue for the socialization of achievement and affiliation.

LITTLE RED WRITING UNDERSTOOD

This week I've been working on the 'Writing for Children' workshop I'm due to facilitate over the next two Saturdays. The first session looks at publishing opportunities.
Novice writers can easily miss an opportunity to get work published because:
(1) they are in too big a hurry to send off a manuscript that is simply not ready; and,
(2) they submit material that does not match the genre, age level or style of material the selected publisher usually publishes.
I recently heard a successful writer comment that her manuscript is not ready until she can read it without wanting to change one word. I am sure one can get to the point of change without improvement, but for beginning writers experimenting with change is very useful. Experience tells me that finding a publisher can be harder than writing a good story.
Some road blocks (and detours) to be navigated.
Roadblock One: THE RIGHT PUBLISHER. Who publishes the kind of material you write?
Roadblock Two: NO UNSOLICITED MANUSCRIPTS. I used to think that meant 'Don't go there' until I learned the distinction between cover letters and query letters
Now to some interesting detours:
1. Don't head straight for the BOOK path.
Try to get published in a newsletter, magazine, online. Try some non-fiction articles; write reviews of others work; talk on radio; join a writers group and/or an online critique group. These put your name in the public eye
2. Grow your personal platform.
Do a google search. Do you exist? You can build a platform to make your self visible. It might be a blog or a website. It might be Facebook or Twitter. Even if you don't wish to create your own site, you can use online media by being a guest on someone else's blog or participating in a podcast. I joined a writers group and read some of my work on a local radio station. Imagine my surprise when five days later I found 'me' on a google search with a mention of this event.
AND NOW, in case you are interested here is an outline of the workshop I will be facilitating for the first time over the next two weekends.

WORKSHOP OUTLINE

"Writing for children
is like writing War and Peace
in haiku."
An adaptation of a quote from Mem Fox

This workshop is for those interested in any aspect of writing for children irrespective of genre. It will touch on fiction and non-fiction and include discussion of such publishing opportunities as daily and periodic newspapers, magazines, newsletters, journals, anthologies, online sites - and more!

Session One: The World of Children’s Writing
Participant are asked to bring from their local library or home bookshelf (at least) THREE books/magazines/newspapers/websites covering the area of their writing interest and published between 2003 - 2009
Little Red enters the forest of Magazines, Newspapers, Picture Books, Emergent Readers, Early Chapter Books and First Novels. Armed with layout instructions, Google search tools, submission guidelines and much more, Clever Little Red bypasses the Big Bad Publisher and reaches Granny’s House of Literary Anticipation where she learns there’s more to writing success than she ever dreamed.

Session Two: The First Page
Participants are invited to bring the first page (or 200 words) only of up to three pieces of their own writing for children.
Little Red has done market research into her subject and theme. Now she has only the first page in which to convince the publisher her story is worthy of publication. In this session participants will have opportunity to critique one another’s first page(s) or two hundred words and look at ways to make a publisher or child want to read beyond the first two hundred words.