Cows in Winter by Dionara (aged 6)

The cows in the North Pole in winter feel cold.  They like the snowing days.  The blue sky high above was cloudy.  All day and night the poor cows shiver.

 Dionara aged 6.

Some of you may be wondering how it is that our students produce the stories that are published on this site.  Well, here is our process.  We hand the children a foolscap page, a pencil and some motivation.  Presently they are looking at the paintings on our walls and choosing that as their subject matter.  In this case Dionara chose a cow (actually the photograph is just the ears and horns of a cow) in a hot stock yard.  I guess in her mind she would prefer the cow to be cooler than it was.  Then we encourage them to expand on that thought.  There is nothing elaborate and at times it requires some coaxing to bring the story out.

The goal is to practise using their imagination, word sounding skills and hands and fingers to form the letters with a pencil (keyboards do not help with fine motor skills at this stage).  We fix up the spelling for the publication but encourage them to have a go at sounding the words and writing the letters for those sounds.  Most of all it has to be fun!