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The bbc 500 words competition
Most evenings I lie with my 6 year old and make up a story for her, she likes to have books read to her but prefers me making up stories, usually about things that have happened around about her and sometimes totally random nonsense. Sometimes she likes to make a story up, they're usually rubbish but occasionally she comes up with a gem.
Anyway she got some info from school about the bbc 500 word competition that encourages kids to make up a story and send it in. She tried to make me send one of mine but I thought that wouldn't be right so we tidied up one of hers about a tree that thinks it's dying when it's losing its leaves only to be told that it's only autumn and you'll get a whole lot of new ones in the spring. I used her words and her language. She didn't get through to the next round.
Today I read some of the winners in the 5-9 category - a sample -" Olga the first ever Feminist lived in prehistoric Ireland...Olga inhabited a world of relentless drudgery."
No way did a 5-9 year old come up with that. The more I read through the other winners i noticed that much of the language belongs to literary tomes more befitting a booker longlasting! These are adults writing stories and sticking their kids names next to it. I can't believe the bbc can't see that.
Anyway rant over!
Comments
Could you not make a comment on the website?
ps. Why not make a book of your daughter's stories yourself? It needn't cost anything if you do it on CreateSpace.
datco2014, I hope you have been praising your 6 year old for having a go. Many thousands of others will not even have entered and sadly many thousands who have entered will be disappointed not to have won. A lesson we all have to learn. I'm sure anyone who has children or grandchildren will be all too familiar with this whether it be in sport, writing, art or any other activity that can be competitive.
Nevertheless, I would wonder about a child of 8/9 writing about feminists and drudery.
I remember when they made a Master Chef for children. The first batch were making 'family meals' and then it developed into very advanced menus. They weren't recipes that you would expect children to be aware of, let alone prepare.
The tree story is a story already, perhaps they thought she had copied it?
But it's quite possible that a child has asked about feminism, or has been brought up in that context. They could easily come across the word 'drudgery', if not in books, by a moaning mother!
I would say that the type of child to enter this competition probably comes from a home where literacy is important. Young children often pick up the most surprising vocabulary.
But I get what you're saying, Datco. In this case, we really don't know.