I have been really anticipating Daywalt and Jeffers sequel to ‘The Day the Crayons quit’, as I enjoyed using the original book so much and at last here it is! The premise is that more of Duncan’s crayons are writing to complain about the terrible things that have happened to them. Each of them send a postcard to tell him about their predicament – where they are stuck …how they have melted… who has sat on them!
The magic of this text is that it can be used to explore so many different aspects of reading and writing:
✔Check that the text makes sense to them, discussing their understanding and explaining the meaning of words in context – Ask pupils to read it in their heads and then read it out loud. Why do they have to read tan crayon in a specific way? When does he get angry? How do we know?
✔ identify how language, structure and presentation contribute to meaning – How does the text actually work? What does the first sentence do to open up the communication? How does the post-card end?
✔Discuss words and phrases that capture the reader’s interest and imagination – What do the crayons actually mean when they say ‘You know the real colour of the sun? HOT’ ‘Your not-so-sunny friends’
✔ draw inferences such as inferring characters’ feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions, and justify inferences with evidence – How does Glow in the dark crayon show us that he is feeling frightened?
I recently worked with some Year 6 pupils and explored the film ‘Inside Out’ and how the different characters were portrayed:
We also discussed emotions and I asked them to colour them in appropriately – this led to a great discussion:
After reading and discussing the different postcards we thought about all the different calamities that might befall one of Duncan’s poor crayons:
Finally I wrote my own version!
DUNCAN!
How could you? You betrayer…life-taker….brute. I thought we were friends because of all the hours spent colouring Batman together. How wrong I was! I helped you reach the highest echelons of artistic expression with my subtle shading and intense mood creation. What did you give me in return? A broken back. A BROKEN BACK! Last night, in a violent rage, you snapped me like a twig and discarded me in the bin. It wasn’t my fault that you coloured over the lines and ruined your ‘masterpiece’!. Who do you think you are? MONET!
Retrieve me immediately or you will be hearing from my lawyer and it won’t be pretty.
Your vengeful, soon-to-be ex-friend,
Ink Crayon
Here is the power-point I used The day the crayons came home
The children then started working on their initial drafts. Here are a few:
A wonderful teacher, Marie Barman, has actually crocheted some crayons for me and they arrived this morning so I will be using them from now on. Watch this space, as I will be posting the pattern really shortly:
I also keep looking for ideas to bring the book to life:
Hopefully I will be able to add more ideas as I will be using this book over the next few weeks. I am going to challenge the most able children to write an Ofsted style report about Duncan’s ‘parenting’ skills. That should be really interesting!