Sarah Brennan Funny & Fabulous Blog

Thank you Shatin Junior School for another day of mayhem with some rampant rhino tales!

Here I am with another great Grade 5 group from Shatin Junior School exploring all the essential ingredients of good story-writing! Thanks for another wonderful day of  workshops! This time our brother-turned-rhinoceros was mistaken for a pig (and eaten at the end of the story in a tragi-comic twist) by one class, bloated with apple pies and exploded by a passing humming-bird by another class…and the third class is writing their version of the tale this very afternoon – I can’t wait to see it! Five very different story plans from an identical starting point from five very creative classes over two days – now THAT’s what I call  narrative planning at its best!

BREAKING NEWS: Competition deadline is extended to Tuesday 12th June!

By special request, because it’s been a very busy month for most of you and some of you have run out of time, I’ve decided to let you have FOUR more days to enter my Dragon and Jade Story Competition. So get those pens out and writing this weekend – and I look forward to your entries!

Hellooooo Shatin Junior School Year 5 Rhinoceroses!

What a fun day that was today – two fabulous Writing Workshops with the clever, creative kids of Shatin Junior School Year 5 working on Oral Narratives and Story Mountains! With everything from a brother turned rhinoceros which morphed into a T-Rex which morphed into a cow which jumped over the moon, to a rhino which ate toxic sausages thrown at it by the US Military in Shatin Central, we had an oral narrative drafting ball! Three more workshops to go tomorrow….I wonder what that Rhino will get up to next? Here’s a photo of us all with one of our story plans!

Dads can be poets too!

What a lovely email I received yesterday from Kurt Verkest, father of Yavanna from Grade 4 Renaissance College Hong Kong after I wrote to Yavanna thanking her for her excellent entry into my Dragon and Jade Story Competition! It was so clever that I just had to share it with you all! Here it is:-

I’d like to thank you from my heart

for making this contest be a part

of Yavanna’s growth as a fledgling author

the better to get her words into order

 She will tell you I’m sure by return of mail

if of your offer she wants to avail

She has my consent to replyy aye or nay

But am certain that yes is what she will say

 I’d like to add a father’s gratitude

for encouraging kids with your great attitude

we love your books and your website too

and when rellies have kids we know just what to do.

 We send them we do with great speedy speed

a handful of books from you for to read

Isn’t that a terrific poem! Thanks Kurt for proving that Dads can be poets too! 

Just 3 days to go till the competition deadline!

Hurry, hurry, hurry! If you haven’t sent in your entry yet to my Dragon and Jade Story Competition you’d better put your skates on! Go to my Clever Competitions page to find out all the details!

A perfect new Wicked Word to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee!

What new Wicked Word is just perfect to describe all the gorgeous decorations, fabulous flowers, delicious feasts, fanastic costumes, glittering jewels and glorious music we’ve been seeing and hearing this week on television and in the news to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee? Go to my Wicked Words page right away to find out!

What a wonderful Diamond Jubilee!

Three cheers for her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second of Great Britain on her Diamond Jubilee! If you’re anything like me, you stayed up very late last night to watch the amazing procession of the Royal Barge up the Thames River! Wasn’t it magnificent! Just think – 60 long years of service to her country and the Commonwealth – that’s a HUGE achievement. Whether we’re British or not, we can all learn from such a wonderful example of hard work and sacrifice in the service of other people. Thank you Queen Elizabeth!

Just 2 weeks to go till the Dragon and Jade story competition deadline!

There are just 14 days to go to get your entry into my Dragon and Jade Story Competition – so if you haven’t entered yet you’d better get your skates on! Go to my Clever Competitions page (above) for all the details on how to enter!

Thank you Victoria South Horizons Kindergarten!

A big thank you to the wonderful Cheryl Reddin, head of English at Victoria South Horizons Kindergarten, for inviting Pin Yin Panda and I to visit the school today! We had a fabulous time with the gorgeous K3s, with story readings, Q and A and chats about Story Mountains! Then it was off to head office at Causeway Bay for a workshop with the VSA Early Years teachers about the crucial importance of reading books in this Internet Age. I had such a lovely welcome, and really felt that I was among friends! And for all you VSH kids out there reading this post, remember to read and read and read lots and lots of lovely books!

Your Top Writing Tip Number 2 awaits you!

What do these three people have in common? They lived in different centuries, in different places, and they were all different ages at the time they were writing – but the one thing that unites them across time and space is that they all kept a daily diary about their ordinary day to day lives … and that diary is now world famous, many years later!

So many kids say they want to become writers – but they don’t write much at all! It’s hard to think of something to write sometimes, and even experienced authors will tell you that a blank page can be the scariest thing of all! So how does a kid get started writing? And what do they write about? And when? Go to my Top Ten Writing Tips for Kids right away to find out! (And if you want to know who the people in the photographs are, you can find that out too!)