Find something around your house which is old or dilapidated or broken and make a still life sketch of it a la “Broken Toys”.Using “The Water Buffalo” as mentor text, students write a story about a wild creature they find somewhere in their house, yard or street.Creative Arts teachers find this really useful in the classroom because these images can ostensibly work as story starters, though I do wonder if students might experience the same awe as I do when confronted with these pieces, unable to come up with anything at all! CREATIVE LEARNING IDEAS: ART OF YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD Some of the stories have no words, and might consist only of a single frame of narrative art. ( I’ve previously written about Eric here.) The common thread between stories in this compendium: All stories are set in the same, off-kilter suburb. Eric, which exists as a miniature stand-alone book. Tales From Outer Suburbia is a collection of various stories. If The Lost Thing makes you question, The Red Tree make you feel, and The Arrival make you empathize, then Tales from Outer Suburbia should make you think. Surely not! If I’m reluctant to delve into Tan’s work, that’s probably because whatever I say, it doesn’t make a dent in all that can be said. Why do I lose words when it comes to Shaun Tan? Perhaps because there’s nothing more to be said? His pictures and text says it all? This is odd for me, who can generally knock out a few thousand words on a picture book no problem. But when I sit down to do just that, in the face of Tan’s work I sometimes draw a blank. I’ve been meaning to take a closer look at the picture books of Australian Shaun Tan for a long time.

The Haunted Playground by Shaun Tan