Writing with Talia Evered

The children’s book author Talia Evered visited our classroom.  She read her book  ‘Imagine a Magic Doorway’ to us.  
She was very entertaining and made her book ‘come alive’.  
We pretended that we were elephants with flappy wings. We flapped and flapped but we couldn’t fly to the top of our classroom – even though we tried very hard!  
We also tried to raise one eyebrow at a time and some of us found it difficult.  Only two people in the whole room could raise an eyebrow 
independently.

Following the reading of the book we wrote an imaginary story with Talia. We pretended that one day the Principal’s car was being towed away by an orange frog.  Then the frog was gobbled up by a starfish! 
Somehow along the way, Sponge Bob arrived and ate a monster saving the day. We were really excited about our story. 
We used our hands to mime our story and we acted out our ideas. 


Talia gave us a few ideas about writing stories.  She told us that we needed to check that we had our brains turned on.  “Once you get an idea you have got to write it down as quick as you can."  "You don’t want to lose it!"  Talia actually wrote her story about the magic door on a paper napkin!  
Writing your ideas down will help you to kick-start your imagination and order your ideas.  Start talking about them too. 
 "If no one’s around to listen, you can always talk to yourself."
Talia also showed us how she writes a brainstorm and then circles her best idea.  
She reminded us to get all our ideas written down and then formulate them into your story.

This is Talia's website if you want to find out more about her books:  http://www.splurgy.co.nz