STORIES AND ST
AR
TERS
STA
RTERS
GRAHAM LOWE SHOWS HOW WRITING
SEQUELS TO WELL-KNOWN STORIES CAN
PROMOTE SCIENCE INVESTIGATIONS
AND THE THREE
VARIABLES
W
hen carrying out
investigative work
in the primary
school, we often
consider how familiar the children are with the context. This
usually means considering the
practical and life experiences the
children have already had. However,
it is also valuable to consider the
children’s literary experiences.
Think about all the stories, novels,
folk tales and nursery rhymes that
children know inside out. Stories
such as the Three Little Pigs ,
Cinderella and Humpty Dumpty are
easily used as the starting points
for investigations with younger
children: a house of straw might
not be much use against the big
bad wolf – but which pig would
fare best in a rainstorm? Are glass
slippers really practical? What is
the maximum safe fall distance
for a raw or cooked egg?
However, one of the problems
with this approach is that it is
inherently limited: it is only
possible to see how some stories
might be used for some investigations. Whilst this may
provide a few valuable starting
points, many teachers will look at
the curriculum that they are
teaching and find that it is
difficult to decide just what story
might provide just the right
stimulus.
Time to get creative:
writing sequels
The solution is really quite simple.
If the story that you need doesn’t
exist, you can write it yourself. If
the thought of writing a short
story for a specific purpose seems
somewhat daunting, consider
how often you ask your children
to do exactly that!
Rather than inventing stories
from scratch, a useful starting
point is to consider the concept
of the ‘sequel’. That is, write a
short story that includes
characters and situations that are
already well known, both to you
and the children. In the example
given here (Box 1), based on the
story of Goldilocks and the Three
Bears, the setting is the three bears’
cottage just after Goldilocks has
run off. I needed a story about
dissolving with as many
uncontrolled variables as
possible, suitable for year 4
children (8/9 year-olds) working
on fair testing. The idea of sugar
in tea seemed obvious. Then I
needed to consider who, in
children’s literature, might be
making more than one cup of tea
– a family grouping. And so it
went from there. Remember that
it is important to consider the
children’s literary preferences. The
story that I came up with features
the three bears, but if I was writing
this for year 6 children (10/11
year-olds) Daddy Bear, Mother
Bear and Baby Bear could easily
become Harry, Ron and Hermione
– the young wizards in the Harry
Potter stories.
Using stories to develop
science skills
As I said, this story was written to
help year 4 children understand
the need for controlling variables.
The first thing to do
is to get the children
to consider what
Baby Bear means
when he says he likes
one cup of tea and not
the other. Once it is
established that this must be
because of the sweetness (that
is, how well or how much the
sugar has dissolved – the
dependent variable), the children
can go on to examine all the
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STORIES AND ST
AR
TERS
STA
RTERS
beanstalk to gain fame
and fortune. But how
did Jack grow his
beanstalk so high?
Jack’s not telling.
Perhaps Jack used
a special plant
‘food’? Or was it
the soil by his
house? Could he
have shone bright
lights on it? Jack’s friends try all of
these things, and more. The beans
do grow bigger, but they don’t
know why.
wanders around the
grounds of Hogwarts collecting leaves. This seems to
keep them happy, but some
leaves seem to disappear
faster than others, and some
don’t get eaten at all. Ron
doesn’t know why, but
Harry’s too busy with
Quidditch practice and
Hermione just tells him to
figure it out for himself. Can you
help?
Harry Potter and the snails of
doom
The doctor has promised Rose a
nice holiday on a planet that’s
completely made up of
beaches and hotels. So
naturally, the Tardis has landed
on an ice world. Whilst the
doctor tries to repair the ship,
Rose decides to investigate
outside. The wardrobe room is
full of coats, hats and scarves but,
surprisingly, no gloves. She
decides to make a cup of tea to
keep her hands warm. She uses a
strange alien cup rather than one
Professor Sprout is
annoyed to find
snails eating
the mandrake
plants and
asks Ron to
get rid of them. Ron knows that
Hermione will be upset if he kills
them so he decides to keep them
as pets. But what to give them to
eat? Professor Sprout won’t let him
have mandrake leaves, so Ron
Doctor Who and the nonexistent gloves
of the plain
china ones but,
after a while,
realises that the
warmth isn’t
getting through
to her hands.
She goes back
to try again.
Which cup should she use?
Finally, don’t be tempted to try
to publish your stories without
checking on copyright! They all
need elaborating upon, but you
can see where they’re going.
Note from the Editor:
If you think you have a good story to
share with others, enter it into our
competition – see page 3.
Graham Lowe is senior
lecturer in primary science
education at the University of
Central England in
Birmingham. Email:
[email protected]
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