Some Additional Ideas and Tips
1. On one of my sessions with kids, after I had handed out the photocopy with the step-by-step instructions for the craft project and showed them my toilet paper tube Mr. Tumblebuddy (which I had crafted as a specimen for that particular writing workshop) the following happened. One of the kids, a girl who was listening attentively to what I had been saying and watching carefully anything I did, raised her hand and said: “ We’ll make him and always keep him on our desk, by our side, to help us when we’re reading a story too!”. I saw the enthusiasm of discovery and the spark of creativity in her eyes.
I was certain this student had become fully aware of the role and magic of Mr. Tumblebuddy Flipet. How quickly she made the connection between writing and reading, when she saw he could be crafted in another form (different from the one I’ve first introduced to the kids, shown in pictures 1a and 1b of this mini guide)! This paper tube figure was their “smaller and personal Mr. Tumblebuddy” – he was their friend, their “BUDDY”, as I had told the kids before we started the craft project. She was right – Mr. Tumblebuddy Flipet is the best helper for reading literature not only as a reader but as a writer as well. So, he could also be used successfully in a reading club too, helping primary school kids detect and pay more attention to the structure of the story plot as their reading.
2. The more often you use Mr. Tumblebuddy Flipet, the more ideas you will get on how to use him further. Lots of ideas will come from kids, telling you what you can do with him or how they use their mini Mr. Tumblebuddy at home (with friends or alone), when writing or reading or telling stories. I haven’t tested it yet, but I believe you will probably discover that, with his help, story-telling turns into an easy game for all.
3. Mr. Tumblebuddy is the idea tool to create adventure stories with kids, which are based on a specific topic related to other school subjects as well, not only language arts. Such stories could be about Nutrition, Hygiene, Travels and Travelling, the Family, Traditions and Customs etc.
4. Another good idea is to promote him to a teacher’s (or parent’s) helper, in the classroom or at home, with assignments like learning opposite concepts, the opposites of adjectives and verbs (with a prefix or not), e.g. joy - sorrow (or sadness), light - dark (or darkness), beauty – ugliness, justice – injustice, useful – useless, healthy – unhealthy, known – unknown, responsible – irresponsible, fill – empty, write – cross out (or erase), etc. As a follow up activity, you could guide kids to write an adventure story, as a group, using the opposite concepts and words they have learnt in their lessons.
5. Try to connect the subjects of Language Arts and Geography, using creative story-writing. For example, Lucky Leo will be talking about positive facts in a particular continent (eg. “Africa has dense jungles with wild animals”) and Unlucky Leo will be talking about negative facts in the same continent (eg. “Africa’s got a big problem with water shortage.”). If you’d like to use Mr. Tumblebuddy with Maths, Lucky Leo would do the additions, Unlucky Leo would do the subtractions – then kids write a group story, using additions and subtractions.
If the Magical Mr. Tumblebuddy Flipet becomes children’s everyday companion, very soon, you will discover that you have succeeded not only in turning creative writing into a game for them but you’ve also turned learning into a game too.