Year 4 are lucky enough to be taking part in a Microsoft writing competition, designed to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Enid Blyton’s best loved and phenomenally successful book series, ‘The Famous Five’. The children have been given the task of writing their own stories in the style of Enid Blyton, set in a place of local interest and presented in the form of Microsoft ‘Sway’. From what I have seen so far, Microsoft have a very difficult judging job on their hands because some of what I have read sounds like it is being read from an actual Enid Blyton book!
The children have all had the opportunity to try writing just like Enid blyton did with a typewriter; this caused a great deal of excitement and also made me feel very old! I have been blown away by the quality of what has been written so far. The children have loved getting to know the characters through reading and listening to extracts from ‘The Famous Five’ series and are really enjoying experimenting with using Enid Blyton’s well recognised style in their own writing.
Whether it is the engaging adventures that have captured the children’s interest or the opportunity to produce a Sway as part of a competition, Enid Blyton’s ‘Famous Five’ and Microsoft are certainly bringing the best out in the children’s level of engagement and in the written outcomes they are producing.
I find it ironic that one of the oldest and most popular children’s book series has inspired such a forward thinking Microsoft writing competition. Enid Blyton wrote her stories on a typewriter sat on her lap, we are writing ours at desks on devices using Microsoft Office 365 in Sway. Very different method but the same adventurous, engaging content.
I’m one very proud teacher! Thank you Microsoft and Thank you Enid Blyton!
Mrs Manssen
Have a look at the following webpage for more details of the competition…
https://education.microsoft.com/famousfivesway
