Paddlestar Galactica, the ping-pong tournament event supporting 826DC’s programs, returns on Saturday, April 27th, 1 PM to 4 PM at SPIN DC! Learn more and sign up here.
News and Events
March 2022

A Fantastic Field Trip

A laser moves toward a golden flower surrounded by other flowers

We recently met amazing second grade authors from Savoy Elementary School in their school library for an onsite field trip! The students wrote an original story together from scratch, pairing writing fundamentals with their creativity and teamwork skills.

Getting Started

One of our 826DC staff members, Dominique, taught the class about some of the elements of a clear, creative, and concrete story. Along with 826DC interns Shyann and KT, she then split the class into three groups to get started on their own story.

Two of the groups created characters for the story: Mr. Jones, a mean football player from Mexico, and Rex Galaxy, a superhero who shoots lasers and lives in an underwater beach house!

The third group created the story’s setting. They decided that the story would be set in Asia in a princess garden made by the one and only Ella Fitzgerald. The garden had a golden flower in it. If someone made a wish to that flower, it would become bright and their wish would come true! 

All Together Now

The students then returned from their groups, and it was time to bring their setting and their characters together. Using the “Story Mountain” story structure, they created something that was pretty magical.

Story mountain poster with 826DC characters. The steps are introduction, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Conclusion
The “Story Mountain” poster in our writing center has characters from other field trips!

The students decided that Rex Galaxy and Mr. Jones were playing in the garden and accidentally made a big mess, destroying the flower! Luckily, the pair ultimately figured out how to fix the magical flower as a team.

More Where That Came From

“Rex Galaxy and the Golden Flower” is just one of the field trip books that we work on each year, and this wonderful, imaginative class is one of many that we have the pleasure of serving.

If you would like to help us publish more stories like this one, from young authors just like these students, you can always donate here.

 


 

This blog post was written by 826DC intern KT Turner.

All “Rex Galaxy and the Golden Flower” images were created by Kevin Downs.