Flotsam: 1

Product Information

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. The illustrations are breathtaking and vivid. The illustrations are done through many different perspectives, making turn paging that much more exciting. Each image is both realistic and full of fantasy. It allows the reader to use their imagination and creativity to piece together the story.

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. The illustrations are drawn in the horizontal format - they are wider than they are tall - and in beautiful watercolors. The story is delightful and universal, full of wonderful detail and whimsical invention: how many of us have often dreamed of finding something which would be special and unique just by chance, to feel the joy of discovery? The juxtaposition of imagination and reality is truly delightful, and so is the uplifting mood of the book and it's message -the perserverance of wonder in an never ending chain. Wave by Suzy Lee – a wordless picture book to encourage thoughtful exploration, discussion and the development of visual literacy.Look at a map and find your closest beach. How far away is it? How could you travel there? How long might the journey take? This is athree-session spelling seed for the book Flotsam by David Wiesner. Below is the coverage from Appendix 1 of the National Curriculum 2014. You’ll need several copies of the book, so that children can follow the illustrations in small groups.

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. This can build into an exercise where half the class are ‘taunters’ on the beach, and half work together as the waves, ‘replying’ to them. The story begins with a curious boy who is visiting the beach. He has an interest in beach life and brings a multitude of exploration tools with him. As he’s exploring, a wave comes, and brings with it a strange looking camera. It resembles an underwater camera. He takes out the film and decides to have the film developed at the one hour photo department. The pictures he gets from the camera are amazing and show pictures of underwater sea life, including some strange mechanical fish. Within the photos he notices something strange and uses his microscope to figure it out. What he sees is surprising. Follow along in the story to see what he decides to do with it.Create your own incredible pictures that show images that might have been taken by the underwater camera. The wonder of this picture book is that it has no words! The story is told by the illustrations alone. A story about a boy who finds an underwater camera washed up on the shore of his local beach and makes discoveries both fanciful and unusual when her gets the film he found in the camera developed. I read through it several times, seeing more each time I did.

Take the initial sequence of images where the boy is swamped by the wave and finds the camera, and the sequence at the end, where the boy is again splashed by the wave (which reclaims his pictures). Talk about the images with your class. How would it feel to be experiencing these events?This book is gorgeous, with amazing illustrations and a wonderful plot. It has the added bonus of being a bit eerie. It reminded me of Jumanji by Chris Van Allsburg in a way. Sometimes I think wordless children's books are extra amazing. Highly recommended. Divide the class into small groups. Give each a selection of three items, plus access to as many clothes pegs as they need.