Session 15 - Feedback

Forgot the children were on half-term holiday this week but had a good turn out anyway so thank you to those who managed to get along.  If one of you mums and dads can let me know the approximate dates for school holidays, I might adjust the session dates to match in future.  That way, nobody misses out.

Had a really good session today, despite the somewhat depleted numbers.  Thank you very much to everyone who has managed to pay their contribution to costs for Word Magic.  I think the bank manager may forgive me once I start paying it back in!  Anyway back to today's session.  Well, I took the Young Writers through the highly amusing world of limerick-writing, demonstrating their layout and rhyme-pattern with several such poems read from my favourite book of children's poetry (Poems For Young Children, Miles Kelly Publishing) and one I had knocked up earlier in the day.  It is actually quite a hard poetry form to explain.  Adults may understand whjen I describe it as having a rhtymn of rhyme that goes AABBA - but it took the children a little while to catch on.  Some of them seemed to click with it almost straight away.  A couple of them struggled a bit but got close.  One or two of them couldn't quite get their heads round it, but that's okay.  It'll come in time.

I gave out what complimentary copies of Word Magic that I could and also announced a Mother's Day poetry competition.  I left a wad of entry forms with Amanda along with some copies of a newsletter I'd put together and asked her to give them out, so if you want more details, she's your girl.

Couple of other things I wanted to mention.  Firstly, I have been in contact with the Polka Children's Theatre in Wimbledon following requests from the Young Writers for trips out.  They have a show running next month based on the writing of the Grimm's Fairy Tales and they have offered us up to 30 tickets at just £2.00 each.  The programme will run for approximately an hour and a half, with an interval, and the visit will conclude with a back-stage tour.  The only date I can make it is Saturday 23rd March and the show will begin at 11am.  Please let me know if you would like your children to attend.  I will also need a number of other grown-ups to help supervise.  Please contact me ASAP if you are interested.

Secondly, I thought it might be an idea to form a small committee to help run the group.  If you would like to volunteer for that, please let me know.

Finally, I did not set an assignment because of the competition but a couple of them requested one so I have asked for a short story.  Think that's about it for now.  Oh yes!  Next session is on Wednesday 6th March.  See you then.  Good Writing!