Spring Rainbows

So after the extended writing task we did previously, I decided to take inspiration from the Big Write initiative and continue giving the girls the opportunity to write a longer uninterrupted piece every fortnight.

As Spring has just begun, I decided to use it as the next prompt - as it was easy to get some firsthand experience and so start some good discussions encouraging rich vocabulary before sitting down to do the writing task.

You can download the writing prompt here.

Before showing the girls the task, I took them to Martineau Gardens so they could actually do the colour hunting challenge mentioned in the prompt. We took photos of the things they found and when we got home I turned these into a collage:

You can download our picture collage here. (the bird pictures I took from Google, since I wasn't able to get a good photo of the robin and magpie we spotted!)

On a different day, before writing, we used their photos as inspiration for a spring time rainbow painting. First, they drew the outline of a rainbow onto white card. Then, they used their photos as reference for drawing pictures in the corresponding stripe of each colour of the rainbow. Finally, they coloured it in using both wax crayons and watercolours - which was their choice! Z did her own version too, mashaAllah. I was really impressed with her patience, which I think is better when she's together with her big sisters as she wants to copy them!

When it came to the actual writing, I think I picked a day when they weren't in the mood for it... We recapped their current target of writing in past tense (and staying in the same tense!) then set the timer for 30min, put a video on YouTube for background Spring sounds, wrote in silence - just as in last time with the desert prompt - but they weren't that motivated this time. Rather than force them to continue or force the issue, I sat with them individually afterwards so they could give themselves feedback: a mark out of 5 for how well they kept in past tense (they both thought they did well at this), a mark out of 5 for how good their descriptions were and a target for next time. M especially was disappointed with herself ("I didn't write enough though!") so insha'Allah they might be more focused next time? I think going to the gardens, which I thought was good for inspiration, might actually have made it more difficult since they were trying to write from memory rather than their imagination? Will try something completely different next time, insha'Allah!