The program begins with a series of short introductory movies intended to stimulate the child to observe his/her surroundings. The movies explore the meaning of the 5 senses of touch, taste, smell, sight and sound, and each movie can be controlled by the teacher/ child and can be easily replayed.

Accessing the Habitats

There are two worksheets: On worksheet 1, the child is asked a series of questions including the following: Write down the first words that come into your head when you hear the word ‘crab’ ? , what does the word ‘crab’ make you think of ?, think about the last time you saw a crab in the sea, or crawling on a beach? What would it feel like, what would you do, where would you live ?

This stage of the creative writing process adds to the previous stages experienced on the computer and encourages the children to write down thoughts and ideas using their powers of observation and awareness of the surroundings. The child uses worksheet 1 to help write a poem on worksheet 2. This page features a large area for the poem to be written in, a colour picture of the selected beastie, plant etc, set against a black and white line drawing of the ‘habitat’ background which the child can colour in, a name and class box, a date box, a title of poem box and a teacher signature box. The teacher decides how the worksheets are incorporated into the lesson.

2.5. Using the generic worksheet

A generic worksheet is supplied which is identical to the other worksheets except that there is no specific subject matter. Any reference to a particular item or inhabitant is deliberately missed out and blank space provided. This allows the the teacher or child to choose their own subject matter and customize the worksheets to their own requirements. This flexibility furthers the creative possibilities available to the teacher for use of the program in the classroom. Click below to download the generic worksheet.