Hampton Junior School and The Monster Machine

Hello Hampton Junior School!

Myself and the monsters were very excited to be contacted by the lovely teachers and children at Hampton Junior School. Year 3 have been reading my picture book The Monster Machine published by Pavilion Children's Books and have really enjoyed it. Which is absolutely fantastic to hear!

Their teacher Miss Devonport tells me they have been inspired by The Monster Machine for a whole 3 week scheme of marvellously monstrous work, including creative writing and collecting materials to build their own monster machine! Wow! 

Monster Emails

The children contacted myself and the monsters via our special monster machine website, they had enjoyed reading the book and had spent some time in class planning and writing some questions for us to answer to learn more about monsters (and writing and illustrating books too.)

Now, myself and the monsters run the website by ourselves (we can't afford any staff) so we were overwhelmed when we got a huge influx of lovely emails, and had lots of fun replying. Hampton Junior School are an inquisitive bunch and asked some wonderful questions like -

'Do the monster wear Jim Jams? What do the monsters eat? Do I have any pets/children/a horse...' and of course wanted to know all about how I got the idea for the book and why do I like monsters so much...

I was really impressed with the emails, and even more so when I learned that these were the very first emails some of the children had written and sent. So I was honoured!

 

Building a Monster Machine

Class 3D with their Marvellous Monster Machine!

Some of the children were very excited to tell me about their plans in class to build a monster machine of their own! They had been collecting materials over half term and were getting ready to construct... Working together in small teams they did a wonderful job, and I was very excited to see some photos of the finished machine!

Look how big it is! Wonderful work Class 3D!

The original monster machine itself...

Monster creative writing

Reading The Monster Machine also inspired a lot of thinking, and wondering what happens after the book is finished. Where do the monsters go? how do they feel and more importantly what does the monster's home planet look like? Using their imaginations class 3D produced some wonderful pieces of creative writing describing the monster's arrival on their home planet and what they imagine it to look like... it is clear we are on the same wavelength :)

 
I was hugely impressed with their work and have been given permission to share a few examples with you here...

Monster Machine creative writing © Belle Roberts 2013

Monster Machine creative writing © Tilly Patterson-Dale 2013

 

Monster Machine creative writing © Katy Upton 2013

Monster Machine creative writing © Frederick Kelly 2013

I'm so pleased the children at Hampton Junior School enjoyed reading my book and am truly thrilled it has inspired such fantastic writing and monstrously, marvellous creative work.  

A huge thank you to Classes 3D, 3M, 3B and Miss Devonport for getting in touch and sharing it with me,

Keep reading, keep writing and stay creative! Keep up the excellent work! 

Nicola (and the monsters)