This short video can be used to inspire and motivate student’s creative and imaginative thinking. It can be used to support the English components of the Australian Curriculum.  The video can set the basis of a class theme “We are all creative”. Below is a list of teaching ideas/activities that can be used in conjunction with watching this video.

Year 2:

• Construct texts featuring print, visual and audio elements using software, including word processing programs (ACELY1674)
• Identify the audience of imaginative, informative and persuasive texts (ACELY1668)
• Compare opinions about characters, events and settings in and between texts (ACELT1589) 

Year 3:

• Understand that successful cooperation with others depends on shared use of social conventions, including turn-taking patterns, and forms of address that vary according to the degree of formality in social situations (ACELA1476)
• Draw connections between personal experiences and the worlds of texts, and share responses with others (ACELT1596)
• Use interaction skills, including active listening behaviours and communicate in a clear, coherent manner using a variety of everyday and learned vocabulary and appropriate tone, pace, pitch and volume (ACELY1792)
• Understand how different types of texts vary in use of language choices, depending on their purpose and context (for example, tense and types of sentences) (ACELA1478)
• Identify the effect on audiences of techniques, for example shot size, vertical camera angle and layout in picture books, advertisements and film segments (ACELA1483) 

Year 4:

• Discuss literary experiences with others, sharing responses and expressing a point of view (ACELT1603)
• Use interaction skills such as acknowledging another’s point of view and linking students’ response to the topic, using familiar and new vocabulary and a range of vocal effects such as tone, pace, pitch and volume to speak clearly and coherently (ACELY1688)
• Discuss how authors and illustrators make stories exciting, moving and absorbing and hold readers’ interest by using various techniques, for example character development and plot tension (ACELT1605)
• Understand differences between the language of opinion and feeling and the language of factual reporting or recording (ACELA1489)
• Identify characteristic features used in imaginative, informative and persuasive texts to meet the purpose of the text(ACELY1690)
• Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning to expand content knowledge, integrating and linking ideas and analysing and evaluating texts (ACELY1692)
• Explore the effect of choices when framing an image, placement of elements in the image, and salience on composition of still and moving images in a range of types of texts(ACELA1496)

Watch the video here:

• Adjectives: Describe the emotions that the boy may have experienced whilst playing with the box.
• Story writing: Write a creative story about a boy who found a box in the woods. What was inside the box?
• Dialogue: If the box could speak what would it say? Write a conversation between the boy and the box.
• Diary: Write a diary for the box. Plan what it will do during the day, who will it meet, what will it see?
• Emotion comparison: How would the boy have felt when he got the box? How would he have felt when it died? Why did he feel a strong connection to the box? What impact did the box have on his life?
• Chat Show: Students will pretend to be an interviewer/news reporter. They will plan detailed and purposeful questions to ask the box. This task is to be performed in partners. One partner will plan the interview questions, the other will plan the boxes responses.
•  Missing Persons: Create a missing persons ad for the box.
• Instructional Label: Write a label that can be stuck onto the side of the box. Your label must provide directions as to how it is to be looked after.
• Materials: What is the best material to make a box out of? Test out different materials. Which one is stronger, more flexible, and waterproof? Etc…
• Invitation: The box doesn’t get out much. It is your job to create an event and invite the box to your exclusive party. Create an invitation addressed to the box. Why should it come to your event?
• Creative thinking: What can a cardboard box be used for?
• Persuasive letter: Persuade someone as to why the box is a good toy to buy and that every kid should have one. Do you agree or disagree with this statement?
• Procedure: Write a procedure as to how to create a box.
• Recipe: Write a recipe on how to make a box.
• Friendship: What makes a good friend?
• Mathematics: Compare weights of cardboard boxes. Compare volumes, which one can hold more? Use cardboard boxes as informal units of measurement. Convert a box into a giant dice.
• Real world: When are boxes used in our everyday lives? Brainstorm as many uses as you can think of.

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