Planning a Story with Lego Friends Jungle Tree Sanctuary

Planning a Story with Lego Friends  Jungle Tree Sanctuary*

The Lego Friends Jungle Tree Sanctuary* (£24.99) has plenty of props and detail to aid the story telling. The set includes Mia and a variety of animals. There is lots of detail and includes a microscope, a laptop, camera, bath, banana, bone, chicken, biscuits, binoculars, walkie talkie, first aid area. The Jungle Tree Sanctuary is set over 3 floors and offers children so much to describe, or to let their imaginations run away with them.Brainstorm. It has been designed with story making in mind. I received a free set for the purposes of this post.

Brainstorm

Creating a brainstorm is a great way for exploring the imagination, planning and organising thoughts. Let ideas branch out from other thoughts. Have the Lego Friends Playset out for inspiration. Write down ideas for the story, the characters; think about the theme, events, actions, etc. Reading can help encourage further ideas, or personal experiences can be drawn upon.

The Plot

Think about what the story is about. Who is the main character – what are they like? What conflict will they encounter? What ways will the character face conflict or adversity and tackle it? (Usually 3 ways). How does the conflict end? Does the main character win or lose? How is it resolved? What lose ends need tying up?

Write a Draft

The first draft of a story should be to help develop the plot. Get the ideas together rather than worrying about spelling and grammar. This may even be done visually by playing with the Lego Friends. It should consist of a good beginning, a middle (setting the problem, describing the characters, setting the scene, and the action) and an end (with the resolution and tying together the loose ends). What is the tone – is it funny, sad, shocking, horror, romantic?

Editing

Read through the draft. Act it out with your Lego Friends. Does it make sense? Does anything need adding or changing? Highlight any mistakes/things you want to change. Think about enriching your language – are better synonyms you could use, use a thesaurus, think about the connectives, which adjectives (describing words) used, the verbs (doing words), adverbs (the words that describe the verbs).

 
A final draft

Write it all up neat, ensuring there are no errors, tidying up what has been written. The final draft could have photos of the Lego Friends set to illustrate it Alternatively, younger writers could take photos first and then add a few words to describe the pictuers.Share it with others.

*LEGO Friends was developed following four years of research, during which time LEGO spoke to thousands of girls and parents across the world. The research enabled LEGO to develop a range that mirrored girls’ tastes and interests, combining the opportunity for realistic role-play, creativity, and a highly detailed, character-based world with the core values of LEGO building.  The LEGO Friends story centers on the everyday lives and personalities of five girls, Emma, Olivia, Mia, Andrea and Stephanie, in a fictional hometown called Heartlake City. Each of the friends characters has a distinct personality and a range of interests including animals, performing arts, invention and design. The building sets in the range reflect different parts of town where the girls’ adventures take place from downtown, suburbs and the beach to camping grounds and mountains. 

** The Lego Friends Jungle Tree Sanctuary (41059) was simple to put together following the visual instructions in the two books. It has lots of playability and is extremely good value for money. Compatible with other Lego and Lego Friends sets. Please note only one Lego Friends character is included in the set, but there are also plenty of animals.

You may also be interested in the Top Lego Toys for Christmas 2014

I received free Lego for this post. All words and opinions are my own.