Story Club by Bounce Theatre

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Hello! Welcome to Issue 12 of Story Club. Story Club is for anyone who loves stories! Using the power of our imagination, we take ourselves on wild adventures and travel the world! This week it has been so sunny, we wanted to cool down! So we’re diving under water in our imaginations for some adventures!

As always, we’d love to hear your amazing stories and pictures, so please do send them in. Mostly we’d just like you to have fun with this and remember how powerful your imagination is – your ideas could change the world! Go get creative! Everyone at Bounce Theatre

Water is amazing! Did you know most of the water in the world is connected! Clouds contain water drops which are rained down onto the ground. Sometimes the sun shines on these water drops and they then become part of the air and clouds again through a process called evaporation. Water from streams flow into rivers, which flow into seas and oceans which move around the whole world. Water from our taps that we use for showers, baths or washing dishes and clothes, then flows down drains and our sewers. Sometimes this water is filtered and it joins our taps again. At other times this water is pumped into our rivers. And of course we drink water! Some of that becomes part of our blood (humans are made up of 70% water) and some of it leaves us when we pop to the loo or when we sweat during hot weather or exercise. Our fruit and vegetables contain water too - think about how juicy a peach or pear is! And a cucumber! All of that is water. As for snow, hail, and icebergs in the arctic - you guessed it, they’re water too, they’re just so cold that each water droplet freezes and joins with other droplets to become a snowflake or block of ice. The Adventure of a Water Drop This week we’re going to write a story from the point of view of a water drop.

Step One: Decide what the character of your water drop is like? Are they: • • • • • •

Relaxed Grumpy Happy Jealous Adventurous Nervous

Step Two: Where does your story happen? Water can move, travel and be contained in different places. Where does your water drop go? It can be in any country, ocean or place in the world - or universe! Here are some ideas: • • • • • •

A river in India An iceberg in the Arctic Your local swimming pool Niagara Falls waterfall A water park Water in the ice caps on Mars

Step Three: How does your water drop move around? Here are some ideas to get you started: • They become a snowflake that melts onto someone’s coat • They get shot out through a water pistol • They drop onto someone in a shower

• They are sprayed through a fireman’s hose • The sun shines on the water drop and it drifts up to become a cloud Step Four: Plan what will happen in your story. Write a beginning, middle, and end. Step Five: Now you’re ready to write! Here’s one we’ve written for inspiration!

A Drop in the Ocean I’m floating and I’m so happy. I look around at all of the other water drops. They’re all happy too. We’re somewhere just above the French mountains and I can see humans skiing, dots in the distance zipping up and down. I relax and take in the view. ‘Oops, I beg your pardon’, says another water drop as they float on up and join our cloud. ‘No problem’, I say and make room to let them in. The wind changes and we begin to move a bit quickly. I feel a bit colder, heavier almost. I move closer to the other droplets to try and get warm. ‘Ouch!’ one yells and I mumble, ‘sorry’. We’re heavier and heavier and chillier and chillier, it’s so uncomfortable. I get closer and then...we’re drifting through the air, thousands of us all in

our snowflake. Everything is peaceful; other flakes drift by us; we race another one and beat it to the ground; I’m so happy to have won that it takes me a moment to realise - I’m on the ground. I cling to the other water drops but we can’t stay together, I feel myself falling away, dripping through the grass, I cling onto a blade but I feel myself being pulled… Down a stream! I’m falling, faster and faster down the mountain, bumping down rocks and pebbles with all the other drops. We relax for a moment until I see we’re heading over...a waterfall! Splash, splash, splashing, I am thrashing over a slope and into a huge pool, all of us swirling and bubbling together, fishes underneath and the sun shining, I see friends rise up and become a rainbow, pink, purple, blue, so much colour; it’s beautiful but… Something grabs me. Huge and pink and solid, I am in a smaller group, I am in a human hand, I take in the rest of its body; it’s a small girl and she’s raising me and her hand up towards her mouth, it’s big and red and… Dark! Everything is dark, red and brown and I realise I am somewhere else now. I’m inside the girl. I slide down her throat, hearing the thud, thud, thud of her heart and the beat of the blood being pumped around her body, which I join. We move down, through the throat and the stomach and the intestines, they’re like big and small tubes, like the best slides I’ve ever been down, moving, moving, moving me along. I hear a crashing up and down, up and down because the girl is…

Skipping. She’s singing a tune, which I bop along to, changing shape and popping out under her armpit, back outside again. I catch a whiff of something a bit cheesy smelling. Oh boy, I’ve become sweat. Yuck. I’m hot and clammy and I stink. I can feel myself sticking to the green t-shirt that the girl is wearing, it’s full of other droplets forming sweat like me. We nod to each other and apologise for the smell but then we’re taken off the girl and chucked into…. The washing machine. Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, I’m going round and round in circles, I love the feeling of being dizzy, hotting up and then cold again, going in and out of shirts, skirts, shorts, and jeans, frothing and whirling all the way down the drain until I’m somewhere dark and cold again, flowing drip dripping into…

A sewer. A giant rat runs by my side and the stench is even worse than the t-shirt, the smell is pure human, I want it to be over, I shift shape and get sprayed out into the river. Everything is calm again. I can see the light of the outside and the city beyond the bank; tall shiny buildings springing up on the horizon. This is where the people live. I am part of millions, a huge expanse travelling slowly until the city becomes a town, rolling into fields of green, brown, and yellow, cliffs rising by our side. I glimpse something up ahead, a patch of blue even bigger than what we are now and stretching out as far as the eye can see…

The ocean. I am bobbing. The current carries me and I curl and leap up, I am the wave. We are choppy, I crash and bang on to the rocks until everything calms and I’m drifting until I can’t see the cliffs or the beach or the lights of the houses anymore. The day becomes night and I see the stars in the sky above me, pin pricks Sculptors often do a sketch or drawing of an idea before making an idea before making their sculpture their sculpture. of light blinking back and forth. Below me are turtles, sea lions, and octopuses, trampolining against the ocean floor. The light starts coming back and I watch the sun rise, slowly growing orange and bright over the ocean. It’s warm again, I feel myself moving back up through the Did You Know? air, up, up, up until Sculptor, Jason De’Caires Taylor I’m part of a cloud. I’m created the world’s first public sculpture park in floating and I’m so happy. Carribean Sea,

Art Challenge

Molinere Bay, Grenada

play This week, your writing challenge was to tell a story about water. So we are going to think about using water to tell your story. Also, how to make new stories up on the spot – inspired by what’s around you. First, your water story… You could tell this and use water in lots of different ways. You could try to move like water. How does water move when: • it is a rain drop? • running from a tap? • being drunk by a person? • in the bath? • in an ocean? • it is steam? Find a way to move for each part of your water story. Or, you could actually use some water in your story. Perhaps… • drink a glass of water whilst you tell your story • tell it whilst you brush your teeth • tell it in the bath. • tell it in a paddling pool • take a bucket of water outside, sprinkle it around whilst you tell your story You’ll need your audience’s help for the second part of this task. Once you have told your water story, look around you and choose something

to tell a story about. If you are outside, it might be a flower.

Start telling the audience about the flower’s day. E.g. I woke up and uncurled my petals…. At any point someone else can interrupt you and say, “Yes and…” and then finish the sentence to add to the story. You can all begin to take turns to build your story and take it in new directions. E.g. My petals uncurled Yes and... My petals uncurled because of the glorious sun. I did a little dance in the wind. Yes and... I heard the happy chirping of the birds. Yes and... I was happy to grow in this garden. Don’t be afraid to make it up as you go along! If you get stuck, start a new story!

creative challenges

Drink at least six glasses of water every day this week.

Make interesting ice. Collect flowers and freeze them overnight. Or, pop in some of your plastic toys. The next day you could take them outdoors and see which melts the fastest.

Think about the animals that live under water. Collect objects from your house and build an underwater sea scene.

Imagine you are an underwater sea explorer. You have to swim around your house. What do you find on your adventures?

Have a water and spoon race. You will need large spoons and two cups/bowls/buckets for each person racing. Fill one cup/bowl/bucket up with some water. Place it on a marker. An empty cup/bowl/bucket is opposite you. You have to spoon your water from one to the other. The winner is the person with the most water in their empty cup/bowl/bucket.

Have a pool party. It might be in the bath, a paddling pool, a bucket, or anything with water that you can sit in! Choose a theme – maybe it’s a superheroes party, you could bring your toys to decorate the space. Or, it might be a green party and everything has to be green. Get some balloons, or decorations and bring snacks. Then chill.

With a grown-up’s permission, put some shallow bowls or trays of water out for the garden wildlife on hot days. Pop a stone or a twig in the water so insects can crawl out if they get stuck.

Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t forget to send us your stories and pictures so we can see your wonderful work! email: lauren@bouncetheatre.com Whatsapp: 07980210705 We read out all the stories & show the pictures online every Friday to celebrate StoryClub