Monday 9 February 2009

Word Games

Have you ever tried to sum yourself up in 6 words?


On the Arvon Foundation Blog there is a page which asks for people to enter their 6-word attempts.


http://arvonblog.org/2008/12/09/sum-yourself-up-in-six-words/

It starts:

*** A new book has been released that celebrates the six word story. Readers of online magazine, SMITH were asked to write their biography using but six words of the English language. The result is a charming and “fabulously appealing” book which includes some top writers. Dave Eggers wrote, “Fifteen years since last professional haircut”.Joyce Carol Oates: “Revenge is living well, without you.” ...***

My attempts so far to sum myself up/tell a story in 6 words are:

'Thought about it, didn't do it'

'Life too short for 24-hour daydreaming' (does that count as 6 or 7 words?)

'Could have been contender, but didn't enter' (ok, so that's 7 words)

'Hoarded stuff, couldn't find what needed'

'Procrastination prevented the cat getting killed'

'The early bird stole my worm'

'Ate too much chocolate then exploded'

'Earnt, saved, spent it all'

'Frugality can make fun life dull'

Maybe you'd like to have a try? It's a very good displacement activity {g}


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This morning, realising that we would be stuck in the house again for most of the day (the snow has cleared but we have a large crack in the windscreen so I'm nervous about driving the car), I had to think up an activity to stop the kids from killing each other.

Amidst groans, I photocopied and enlarged pages of print from fiction and non-fiction books. Then I told the kids to set about the various paragraphs with scissors and see what funny sentences they could come up with. The groans faded as they mucked about chopping and changing words. After about half an hour ds2 came up with the following:

'her gold knickers expand when she's bad-tempered'
'You will need to avoid the danger of thunder knickers'

ds1 came up with:
'enormous, surprising, interesting, nasty, messy, salty, sodden, draggled bit of powerful petrol egg equipped with rocket piano with overboard hook and a bulldozer'

I even managed to casually mention the idea of 'adjectives' (which we could have done with more of - next time I'll photocopy something very descriptive) and 'adverbs'. Subtle eh?

Shhh...don't tell them they did something *Educational*

2 comments:

Carolyn said...

Oh dear, that does sound rather educational. I struggle with anything like that....for one reason or another.
I LOVE the idea of cutting up the pages and making sentences, just don't think it would work here :-(
David cannot read yet and Jon is good with drawing not words. And Tom, who IS a word person, is 14 (need I say more?) and lacking in imagination!!
Hmphhh
As for summing myself up in 6 words...now that needs some thought!!

Elaine, Ellies Treasures said...

I like the "earnt, saved, spent it all" one! Very appropriate for me too!

What a great idea this is (a quite hard as well) - will get the kids having a go I think.