Have A Blast With Beep And Bob!

guest blog by Jonathan Roth

Bob is an ordinary kid who finds himself having to go to school in the most terrifying place he can imagine: outer space! Luckily he makes friends with a lost little alien named Beep, and together they face all the usual school challenges (tests, too much homework, bullies) and the not-so-usual (lack of gravity, black holes, giant space spiders). You can read all about their adventures (Bob keeps a journal and Beep draws the pictures) and use the following prompts to create your own!

Writing Prompts:

In a few words or paragraphs or pages, complete the following:

“I was just accepted to go to school that’s located _____________ miles away, somewhere near ________________________ but I’m super nervous to go there because ___________________________.”

“Don’t be mad, but I just let an alien into the school and it___________.”

“You’re never going to believe this, but we just went on a field trip to _________ and just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse ____________________.”

“I once traveled to the future for a day and to my great surprise _____________________.”

“Whatever you do, don’t push the red button because it ___________________!”

“I just found a special spray that cures me of my biggest fears, which are ______________ but the spray also gives me strange side effects such as ______________.”

“My Emergency Space Pack is full of such helpful items as ___________________ but also has some pretty useless things like _______________________.”

“Oh, no, I forget the password that disables the Self-Destruct Button I just accidentally pushed, but I know it’s one of my twenty favorite things, which are _________________ and _____.”

“I just read the entire BEEP AND BOB series, which was pretty good, but I have an idea for an even better series which is about ___________________.”

Illustration Prompts:

Beep is a cute alien, but there are some aliens Bob hasn’t met. So Bob will know who to look out for, please draw:

Squeep, who’s even cuter than Beep

and Klob, who’s super scary.

Know any other aliens? Draw them too!

I hope you have fun with your writing and illustrating. The main thing to remember is that you can always, always improve with practice. And being creative can be a blast!

http://beepandbob.com/

Earth's Point of View

by Laura Gehl

Get your class thinking about writing fun, humorous nonfiction with Stacy McAnulty’s Earth: My First 4.54 Billion Years (illustrated by David Litchfield).

After you read Earth out loud, here are some ideas for getting your students writing:

1)    Earth is written in first person, from Earth’s point of view. Think of an object in your classroom. Write about the school day from the point of view of that object. Make sure to show your object’s personality in your writing…is the object shy? A know-it-all? Silly? Vain?

2)    Earth tells the life story of our planet. Whose life story would you like to tell? Pick a person, object, or animal in your life, and write a short autobiography. (Hint: before you start writing, you will need to decide what are the most important events and details to share…you can’t include everything, or your story will be too long and boring!)

3)    At the end of the book Earth, author Stacy McAnulty has a funny note addressed to an “alien visitor.” What if an alien visited Earth and it was YOUR job to teach that alien everything important about our planet? Write a speech, make a pamphlet or poster, draw a cartoon…use your creativity to show what facts you would tell the alien visitor about Earth, and how you would make those facts seem interesting to your audience!

www.lauragehl.com