A Day In The Life of a Pencil
You are probably sat reading this thinking how on earth can this be part of a writing lesson. I, myself was thinking the same thing. Last week one of my children in the middle of a piece of quiet time simply stated, I wonder what its like to be a pencil. BANG! Friday writing idea was born for this week. If we sit here and think about a day for a pencil, its hard work. Sweaty hands, bogeys, ear wax, being chewed to death, the shredder of doom even cuts of parts of his body bits at a time. Will the children be able to write about his feelings or will this be too abstract, will we'll find out tomorrow but I am hoping that they use their incredible creative thinking to create some mini masterpieces of writing. I'm going to use the video below to help them in case some become a bit stuck on ideas (although the role play of sticking a pencil up my nose etc should give them plenty ideas). I will start by letting them explore what it is like to be a pencil and get them to write down events that the pencil might go through in a particular day. We will then discuss and note down how the pencil might view us. Are we known as the demon killers by the pencils of our classrooms? What is that stuff that we make them lose their life to? Then I will share my own thoughts before they have a go at writing their own. My Hideous Life So here I am again. Bored out of my brains, aching from yet another excruciating day of work. Laid down next to all my other overworked friends. Silent flows through the classroom now because all of them crazy people have gone home, which means that I can finally have a rest and recuperate from the long day. You see, I’m a pencil. That’s right, a pencil. I lay here all night feeling sorry for myself. Let me tell you why. Well it usually starts as soon as the mini-beings stampede into the classroom. I’m picked up quite quickly and if I am lucky I don’t go immediately into the dreaded shredder of doom. My blood flows out of me quickly to enable these strange creatures to draw some crazy looking doodles onto some white material they call paper. For a moment I’m put down for a rest while this huge being stands next to this glowing temple of knowledge talking to the mini-beings. But then my day goes from bad to worse. You might think being a pencil isn’t all that bad (apart from being put into the shredder of doom) – well let me tell you, it is! First of all it’s the chewing and saliva. I mean, I know I am yellow and black and look like a tasty sweet – I’m not! I don’t want saliva dripping down me, its vial and disgusting. Then there’s the times when I’m used to scratch peoples noses, I mean once I even had bogeys on my head for a week! On the table, the floor, back to my bed, into their germ infested hands, back to the table. I’m constantly being man-handled by these incredulous beasts who have no regard for my own personal well-being. As well as the bogeys and the saliva I even have to put up with being shoved into hair or on the giants massive hearing implements where I generally get left until the time comes to once again lose my blood. Eventually, at the end of every day, a loud noise clatters after hours of being treat like a piece of dirt and I’m hurtled into my bed once more. Well, so far I have. I’m losing friends fast, they are losing their blood quickly. We are being overused and our life expectancy is down to four weeks. That’s my hideous life. It’s no fun being a pencil, especially a run of the mill boring pencil like me.
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May 2015
AuthorI'm a deputy head in Scarborough, England and love using media and tech to develop writing. I'm also a keen advocate of Learning Without Limits and believe in a games based approach to developing mathematicians. Archives |