Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

5 minutes

Tune In: Can reading be magic?

25 minutes

Find Out: Using magic to change a story

25 minutes

Take Action: Sharing the magic

5 minutes

Reflection

Learning intentions

Students will:

know that they can create magical stories
recognise and experiment with key events, characters and settings in a story.

Success criteria

Students can:

adapt a story to include elements of magic
communicate their own ideas about a scene or story.

Tune In: Can reading be magic?

Step 1

Begin by explaining the premise of Children’s Book Week to students, i.e. every year students all around Australia spend a week celebrating how wonderful books are and how great reading is.

This year’s Children’s Book Week theme is ‘Reading is Magic.’ Consider sharing the following poster from Children’s Book Week (available to download here cbca.org.au/cbca-book-week-resources/):

Invite students to suggest what they see and think about this image.

Through your discussion:

Draw attention to the theme ‘Reading is Magic’ and focus on the double meaning of this statement (i.e. that reading is wonderful and that books can contain magical stories).
Point out that the colour purple is used extensively in this image; this is because purple is traditionally a colour associated with magic and imagination. You could do a quick Google Images search of ‘magic’ or ‘kids books about magic’ and see how many purple images you can find.

Then explain to students that they will now be using a bit of their own magic to make a story magical!

Find Out: Using magic to change a story

Step 1

Gather students together and read aloud from the book you have already selected.

Step 2

Once complete, take some time to work with students to analyse the main events, characters and setting of the story.

Consider the following questions to guide your analysis (note: the questions below can be adjusted to suit the age and ability of your students):

What happens in this story?
What happened at the beginning of the story?
What happened in the middle of the story?
What happened at the end of the story?

Step 3

On the board, create a table like the one below and record the main events from the story in the table (leave some space below the table - you may want to add a new row later in the lesson):

Start	Middle	End

Step 4

You could also discuss the characters and setting in the story, for example:

Who are the main characters in the story?
What happens to the main characters?
Where is this story set? How can you tell?

Step 5

Once complete, explain:

There is now a new character in the story, and this new character is you! On top of that, this new character has a magical power - you will now bring some magic to this story!

Pose the following, adjusting the questions to suit your cohort:

What magical power would you have? (Note: you could record these on the board using a purple marker, purple being the colour of magic!)
How would you and your magical power change the story? How could you change it for the better? How could you change it for the worse?
What would change at each of the main events of the story? (Refer to the main events recorded in the table.)

How would other characters or the setting be affected?

Keep referring back to the original text and the main events recorded on the student’s story outlines. You could also add another row to the table you created on the board, label it NEW and record some of the suggested changes proposed by students on the board:

Start	Middle	End

NEW Start	NEW Middle	NEW End

Take Action: Sharing the magic

Step 1

Students will now start developing their own story ideas in more detail. Depending on the age and ability of your students:

students could work in pairs to work together to come up with a new story, talking through their ideas together
students could work independently to create their own versions before sharing their ideas with a partner.

Optional: Students could record their ideas on the story outline. Rough sketches or notes would be fine as a final draft will be created later (encourage students to use purple pencils to record anything that relates to magic.

Step 2

Students will now create a final version of a scene from their new story, or they can create the full story. The story or scene could include (adjust the number of requirements to suit the age and ability of your students):

details about the new character (themselves!)
an element of magic (again this could be indicated with purple if appropriate)
another character
some details about the setting
information about where this scene is from in the story (i.e. start, middle or end).

If time permits, students could illustrate their stories or scenes. Refer back to the Children’s Book Week 2024 poster (cbca.org.au/cbca-book-week-resources/) for inspiration.

Step 3

Students can share their scenes with an audience. This could be done by inviting students to read out or explain the scene they created to other students or by creating a display for your Children’s Book Week celebrations. Alternatively, you could make an ebook out of student work (e.g. with Canva canva.com/create/ebooks/) to share with families.

Reflection

Engage students in a class discussion around the following:

What’s the best bit about having magic in a story?

Take it further

Students could also design a Children’s Book Week costume for the character they created in this story. Students could base their designs on the Book Week Costume template.

Book Week 2024: Add Some Magic To A Story

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Summary

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