Flotsam: 1

Product Information

There is a Spelling Seed session for every week of the associated Writing Root. Coverage: Word List Words With no text to interfere, this book's expressive, sensitively painted watercolors tell the story as words never could. And the magic of the boy's imaginative, somewhat surreal photos is intriguing and will amaze the reader.

I have become a big fan of David Wiesner’s children’s books, probably because one doesn’t need to be a child to enjoy them. They are collectibles and such pleasures to enjoy. There aren’t words, but the wonderful illustrations always tell the stories by themselves. David Wiesner’s wordless, imaginative and exuberantly detailed picture book, Flotsam (Clarion Books, 2006), is a joy to share with children at KS2. Its playful sophistication conveys a complexity of ideas that linger in the mind long after the book has been closed, encouraging discussion and inspiring all kinds of responses. One of the reasons I love Wiesner’s work is that he comes up with ideas I would never think about. A mysterious camera would be something a child would want to keep so the lesson here is to see if the boy understands the long-term goal of the obviously amazing camera. An enjoyable read.

What are these creatures called? What are their habitats and life cycles? Ask children to draw and write about them, creating entries for an encyclopedia about newly discovered underwater life. How would these creatures move? With each child holding part of the creature, groups must animate them like puppets, making them swim around the room. What might these cameras have seen on their journeys through time? Encourage children to become more imaginative in their thinking. Add to your collection of words, this time thinking of the best adjectives and similes to describe the cameras and what they represent. Identify the geographical features of beaches and coastlines. Can you create a report about some of them? Make a glossary of sea-themed words, including vocabulary from the book’s title and blurb (e.g. flotsam, floating, ashore, barnacle).

Explain that they’re going to create an imaginary undersea creature, using pegs to secure their objects together. Whole Class Reading resources and planning for Year 2, in a zip file based on David Wiesner’s ‘Flotsam’. This book will link well to any seaside topic and has links to the KS1 Geography curriculum of continents and oceans. Vocabulary, Prediction, Clarification, Retrieval and Inference and are all covered in this unit. This unit could easily be extended into numerous more lessons including many incidental writing opportunities for descriptive settings, diary writing and letters. The book has endless possibilities. Meet unexpected underseas denizens and enter fascinating worlds within worlds in this entrancing celebration of imagination, creativity, and the impulse to share that which delights and amazes us.What an incredible book. The illustrations are absolutely amazing! This is the second book by Weisner that I have gotten my hands on and I don't want to let go. A young boy is by the seashore and engrossed in looking at a few sea creatures when a large wave overtakes him and deposits an old underwater camera at his feet.