Year 4 enjoyed reading the story of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. This text inspired our creative writing pieces, with the focus being on building excitement and tension as Charlie began his journey to the Chocolate Factory. The children learned about different language features used within a fictional text including: dialogue, expanded noun phrases, and adjectives for impact.
Alongside this, we focussed on our thesaurus skills to find synonyms; these techniques were the foundations used to build their own version of the story. The pieces the children wrote were emotive, exciting and filled with fantastic language. Pride shone from them as they shared their stories, using self and peer marking techniques to perfect their final piece. At the end of this piece of writing, the children had a visit from a chocolatier, Oli The Choc!
Oli brought with him the knowledge of the origins of chocolate and how it is formed from a cocoa bean. Getting ‘stuck in’ making their own pieces of chocolate, using the careful skill of tempering and truly getting into the Willy Wonka spirit! Immersive and unforgettable experiences such as these, alongside their writing, help to inspire their creativity, spark new ideas and allow them to grow as a writer.
Creative writing is an imaginative process, the freedom within this style of writing allows the children to think outside of the box, express themselves and build overall confidence. I have watched the children grow into already fantastic writers this term and am excited to see what they can create!
