Zoe Anne

This year for end of term treats we’ve watched Labyrinth, The Neverending Story and we’re half-way through The Princess Bride (I’m prepped for Montoya’s little linguistic moment). The class keep asking to watch more of “the 80s” - it cracks me up.

Also, when did cat appear? And what is name? Very happy to see him.

I find myself vastly cheered by the odd BANG! or BOOM!
tbf I teach Year 4…

Gothic 9yo is copying out the text to Duck, Death and the Tulip by Wolf Erlbruch because he loves it so much he wants the words with him all the time 🤷‍♀️

Don’t they go well together? 🥰

I love your Shaun Tan collection! Here’s mine alongside a print by @edfinch.bsky.social

Beautiful flowers

Mother is hitting a walnut with her stick and shouting "SQUIRREL!"
No, Mother, that is a walnut.
"This year I am going to FOIL THE SQUIRREL!"
The plan is to strip the walnut tree before the squirrel can, and bury the nuts herself. The soil will 'condition' them and she can dig them up as needed.

Throw it away Toby.
He’s just chilling.
How do you keep getting away Toby?
He teleports!
Jump!
Is there still gravity?
Jump!
Jump!
JUMP!
Yeahhhh….
It’s Jareth.
He is so sussy.
Push him off!
Punch him in the face!
How did that happen? Was it all a dream?
It wasn’t a dream.
It wasn’t.
It wasn’t.

Accidental poem written aloud by a softly-burbling fugue-state class of 8-9 year olds while watching the last few scenes of Labyrinth:

It’s Storytime with Wil Wheaton You may recognize Wil Wheaton’s name from his acting work in television shows like The Big Bang Theory, Leverage, and Star Trek: The Next Generation, or 1985’s timeless classic, Stand B…

Hi friends. It's official podcast launch day!

It's Storytime with Wil Wheaton's first episode, a wonderful story called Rock, Paper, Scissors, Love, Death, by Caroline M. Yoachim, is now available wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm so excited and pretty anxious! It's a big day!

What’s the conference btw? I miss Oxford Reading & Writing Sprees SO much!

We’ve been doing weekly sessions on mini-drama this term - giving children a short script, 20 mins to prep and then a performance. Tangential, but it’s been fascinating as social development & awareness of each other’s physicality + audience awareness. Star Wars Shakespeare totally rocked recently.

@edfinch.bsky.social - did you mean sharing personal anecdotes, reading class books or story-telling off-script, as it were? Or all/any of the above?

4) It’s a warm & relational experience and we’re all trying to help children develop that sort of connection with books and other people.

1) Children can hear stories read with expression, which models a responsive relationship to text & audience.
2) It gives them confidence to read aloud themselves ^ modelling…
3) Their comments & observations encourage them to listen to each other & be alert to developing their own responses.
4) eep

Contested Commons | Reaktion Books A radical history of England, Contested Commons is a gripping overview of increasingly restrictive policing and legislation against protest in public spaces. It tells the long history of contests over...

It exists! My new book is out later this year with Reaktion Books.
If you are famous and/or a public intellectual and want to review it/provide a pull quote, DM.
#ProtestHistory #Commons
reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/contest...

Mother is being querulous about her glasses. She has sent me on a cascade of tiny side quests to collect them all. Then she rejected them 🤷‍♀️. “I’m sorry, darling. I feel like a collie - I have to …. HERD my glasses…”
😂

Oh this is so true.

“Realist” fiction is a comforting fantasy. Fiction in which people create strange computer programmes that pretend to be God and billionaires build survival bunkers is truthfully reflecting reality. So is fiction where weird hallucinatory shit happens.

She is drinking Baileys, wearing an eyepatch and snarling at the cryptic crossword - “Yarrrrrgh! Too EASY!”
I love these weird in-betweeny days 😂

My mother just randomly mentioned “Robbie Williams - you know, Wham?”
After I had recovered from my weeping snorting fit she said “Oh well, I knew he was in some sort of band like What What What…”

She was not trolling me.

Ahhh Thursday Creative Writing Club, let me count the ways… 😂

Some grieve for Chocolate Pac-Man.
Some relish his doom.
Some find his defEAT inevitable.
Some wail for him to step into the bright shroud of Lazarus.
Some say that resurrections are cheating (except for that 1 story where everyone comes back twice so they die again gruesomely rapidly lots).

Can’t wait til the paperback comes out so I can get some for my class - there are worlds of glorious writing / mapping / creepy flora & fauna lessons (and more) aching to be planned. It’s heavenly beautiful too…

My mum is grumbling about how things have changed - “Now we’ve all got mobile phones and I don’t know what’s happened to citizens band radio…”.
She has a new trapper hat - “like putting your head into a rabbit - it’s quite delightful” - which will end up slathered in wax if it dares let in rain.

Haha I just read the ending - best bit of dialogue I’ve read in any context for AGES 😂😂😂

I had a child write an epic rainbow friends story which he insisted was non-fiction because it had really happened to him & his friends. Simulation autobiographies?!? So cool…

We all need a danger helper…

It’s ok I got it now!!!

I’m not sure how to find it - when I search I see unique names with a pin emoji after them…