Alien Time

A class at Broadway Primary School in Rossendale have been learning about space this week. Therefore, their monster species designs are all from imaginary planets.

Here are some highlights:

Brilliant species names: Zuge Zig Zag (Seb), Silmeranter (Ellie), Ziggle-Zoggle who live on planet Zig Bog (Ella), Googlelexi (Josh), Biggle Boggle (Millie), Zigga Bomb (Morgan), Gassy saif (Unknown).

I was surprised by how charming some of Broadway's aliens are.

'Rosy gets her strengths by smelling roses and drinking fresh water.'  - Bella

'Their personality is smiley and kind, very kind. Whenever a Royastar walks into a room there is a beautiful scent of lemonade that draws everyone in the room to look at her eyes, which are the most beautiful and cutest eyes you could ever imagine.' - Char

'The Spotty Wot's strengths are being nice and eating vegetables.' - Enya

'Daisy's strength is smelling daisies and she eats candy flowers and marshmallows.' - Hannah.

Goodness me - some of the other monsters I've read about, such as Count Crocular, could learn a thing of two from these alien species!

'The Spotty Wot smells like roses, she tastes like sweets so you can lick her.'

Hmm... I think I'll pass on the alien licking. Just in case ...

Uh oh! Maybe I spoke too soon about these aliens being pleasant. I've just read Savannah's description:

'The ding pong has spikes on its tail and spiky toe nails and if you were to lick its ear it would taste like revolting hard rock and slugs mixed together in a broth.'

I wonder how this detail is known. Did somebody once try licking a ding pong? And if so, where are they now?

Yep, I definitely spoke too soon:

'It always has chicken pox and she has flaky orange skin that dropps off whenever she moves.' - Ella

'Flamagas eat run-over racoon but only if it’s been run over by a spaceship because it always tastes better than by a car.' - Holly

Holly's is a good example of showing the reader how revolting her alien is, instead of telling. Showing your readers something your character does, can be a very effective way of letting them know what your character is like, without you ever having to say so.

Ben has given us another example of showing. He shows the reader how vile his species is by showing what it eats.
'Disgustingly what he eats is: slugs, humans, mud and vomit.'

On the subject of Ben, he used the phrase 'He is a very musty green'. This is brilliant because he's not only used a colour, but he's described the shade too. I love the word 'musty'; I don't know why, but I do.

I noticed some good examples of smilies in this class's work, for example:
'Most of them smell of rotten fish drowned in lumpy milk. And some smell of smelly feet in 186 year old blood.' - Holly
'This gruesome alien is not as bad as it seems because of its dumb clumsy attitude like a dog wanting to tinkle.' - Josh
'Atomina smells delightful a bit like fresh summer flowers on a beautiful sunny day or a very expensive perfume.' - Fay
'It has a smell of rotten market fish Kiev cooked in rabbit droppings with carrots and peas found in sick' - Josh
'They have huge bottoms the size of half a python rolled up.' - Sam
'This species is aliengogster it smells like salad from the sewers, rotten egg on pizza and windy pop waffle!' - Jack

Some of you really thought about planets and their living conditions, which impressed me.

'The Zygloxeon species are very rare because of position and climate. The planet is red and doesn’t have any sort of day and night ...' - Tobi

Sam considered extinction when designing his species. This could add an interesting dimension to a monster story.
'The last time it was recorded there were only 15 Zygons left.' - Sam

Savannah made up a word - 'wapowww' - to describe her monster's sound. Sometimes, when you're writing creatively, you'll find that there simply isn't a word to say what you want to say. On such occasions it is perfectly okay - in fact encouraged - to make one up. I'll post an article on made up words soon.

I'd like to congratulate Jack for being only the second child to consider a monster made from gas. This is impressive thinking outside the box. 'His strengths are that he can disappear whenever he wants because he is made of gas.'

I shall leave you with Josh's entire description, because it's full of humour and rich descriptions. I really enjoyed it.

Googlelexi

Googlelexi is the last of its species from the cold hearted planet Cluto (clu-toe) It has a smell of rotten market fish Kiev cooked in rabbit droppings with carrots and peas found in sick. Its shoulders smell of revolting gone off poo smudges.

This gruesome alien is not as bad as it seems because of its dumb clumsy attitude like a dog wanting to tinkle. Very stupid it seems throwing himself around with all those repulsive smells. He’s got a very funny personality, so watch out kids as you could be its next meal...

Amazingly he loves swimming in a lake whilst skinny dipping, he quite likes a little doze in the lake. They absolutely hate the taste of raw fish and of course clothes which is why they love being naked.

As I was saying kids, he will chomp on you and down, down, down you go through to his icky stomach. Don’t be scared he only creeps at night gobbling kids. In the day he eats eyeballs covered in gooey red snot.

He is a very strong swimmer and can crush anything with his pinkie finger, but his weaknesses are fire and grumpy teachers.

Josh, Year 5, Broadway