We have been having fun this year. Found this photo on my card reader so I thought I’d share a slice of our very silly day. 

Assignment: Creative Freewriting Adventure: a journey into freewriting

Your Journey: You live in Miletus, Hometown of the world-renowned philosopher Thales. It is late at night, and you are tired, but thirsty, and there is no water left in your house. You carry your water pitcher to the well in the center of town. There you see a dishelved old man, leaning into the well, staring intently down into the water, Suddenly, he loses his balance and tumbles in. What do you do?

So – We already read a page about Thales, his prediction of an eclipse, and the story of him falling into a well. But this time, we get to take a turn with the well story and put it into our own words, creatively.

Stacy Farrell gives the boys quite a few prompts. I’ll spare you the direct questions, but this is what they came up with:

1: Well, I didn’t know him very well, but he’s that crazy old guy in town that people think are on drugs. He was mumbling to himself when he fell in and then started screaming – Gorsh Darnit!! I rushed over and asked, “Hey old man, are you OK?” I couldn’t find anyone else around to help me. It was a clear summer night sky, about 75 degrees outside and it felt muggy. All I could see was dirt for miles and I heard crickets. I bent over get some water and smelled urine, that old guy had not showered! So I passed on the water and went home, thinking I’d find help in the morning.

2.  Well, I can’t tell you how happy I was to see Santa, who was coming by to bring our gifts! I think he thought the well was a chimney, cause I saw him jump in and yell, “Ho, Ho, Ho!”. I rushed over and asked him if he had my purple pony that I asked for. I turned around when I heard three elves crying. We were in the desert with a really high hill to the west. There was a Wendy’s on the top of the hill. The Elves were crying because they had gotten frosty’s and didn’t know that the valley floor would only be 12 degrees at night. I looked around for help and heard rattle snakes. When I bent over the well I smelled Mississippi Apricots which made me remember I was thirsty. I drew up some water and it tasted like Cookies and Milk. I let Santa use him magic to get out of the well.

3. Once again, my crazy uncle was down at the well tying to look for Merlin. I went down to talk to him when I saw him fall in. I was like, “Shoot, Not Again!”. He keeps looking for Merlin. It was a clear night with stars, and nothing but dirt for miles. My crazy uncle was in the well yelling curse words at Morgan. Suddenly, I could smell red wine. I went back into town to the bar and had some wine instead of water.

It took us eight minutes to to go through the questions, and then we spent 7 minutes creating our paragraphs.  I think the next time we do it all together, I’ll have them write down their answers quietly. It was hard to have individual themes, hardest for the 3rd person to be creative. There are 10 lessons. We’ve done two, and are looking forward to finishing them.

I already gave a review on this product – the specifics are here: https://pebblekeeper.com/2014/09/02/creative-freewriting-adventure-a-review/ I think this is a really fun way to get thinking, creative, and writing. My boys, especially our new friend, are glad that writing can be so spontaneous and fun.