Primary School Workshops
Browse our range of Primary School Workshops or search by text type or theme.
Robot Bird
The wonder of nature meets the mechanised 21st Century in one of Story Factory’s most popular workshops. Watch your students take flight as they are immersed in an imaginative coming-of-age story that inspires them to pen the tale of meeting their own fantastical robot bird. Special guest writing techniques in the workshop include onomatopoeia, simile and narrative structure.
The Pirates Guide
Fasten your tricorns and polish your blades. This program will arm every young swashbuckling scallywag with the literary skills they need for a creatively narrated life of sea-faring, kraken-killing and treasure-nicking. Students will craft vivid descriptions, create nuanced characters, and plot persuasive mutinies. So you want to be a pirate? Let's get stAAARRRRRRRRted.
Monster Under the Couch
Student imaginations run wild when they learn that there is a hungry monster living under their couch. Armed with the poetic devices of simile and repetition, they will create a narrative poem describing their first encounter with the fearsome creature.
Fried Lies
It’s not often you get full permission to lie, but in this playful workshop fibbing is encouraged! Students are introduced to the humorous poem Fried Lies by Harry Laing, an acclaimed children’s writer, poet and comedic performer based in the Southern Tablelands of NSW. After a hilariously dishonest ideation session, students use descriptive imagery and humour to cook up their own tall tales, writing poems inspired by Fried Lies.
Deadly Lyrics
Harness the energy and vitality of contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists like King Stingray, Zacharaiahah Fielding and Baker Boy to inspire your students to write their own lyrics. This program immerses students in Indigenous cultures and languages from diverse communities around Australia. They will witness Yolŋu Matha and Hip Hop effortlessly fusing together as they explore rhyme, similes and metaphor to share their own experiences and values in forms such as rap and lullabies.
Secret Life of Stuff
In this program students will delve into letters inspired by the picture book The Day the Crayons Quit. Students will bring objects from their daily lives to life by creating unique characters, imagining daily activities, and drafting dialogue. As students work through the writing process they will role play interviews and create the content for various written texts including letters. Secret Life of Stuff is a fun and engaging way to explore character creation!
Food Glorious Food
Stirring a base of inspiration, with a cup of opinions and a pinch of giggles, students explore poems that are both hilarious and informative in this program based on food, glorious food. During these workshops students will practice playful activities using alliteration, similes, rhyming and verb choices as they add their own flavour and spices to food-themed poetry. Students will plan, create and share three poems celebrating their fantastic imaginative food orders.
#FaceGame
In this workshop students will write snappy short stories, creating their own unique characters during this one- off narrative workshop. Students will attain expert facial recognition skills and a new appreciation for their everyday life as they transform inanimate objects into imaginative characters bursting with personality.
Pop-up Poetry
In this workshop, students are transformed into guerilla or ‘pop-up’ poets, i.e. poets who publish poems in unexpected and unconventional places to add a bit of magic to peoples’ days! They are supported to write a list poem based on Nikita Gill’s poem ‘An Ounce of Joy’. They're then invited to find the perfect place to hide their poem for someone else to find.
Soft Space
In this one-off workshop, students will explore the vibrant artworks of Amy Claire Mills, a disabled and neurodivergent artist working on Gadigal Land, in Sydney. Inspired by her bold and imaginative textiles and soft sculpture pieces, students will reflect on the kind of soft spaces—safe, welcoming places—they’d love to spend time in.
Freedom Machines
In this workshop, students are introduced to the fantastical picture book called the Incredible Freedom Machines by Kirli Saunders, a proud Gunai woman with ties to the Yuin, Gundungurra, Gadigal and Biripi peoples, Indigenous to Australia. Students examine their ideas of freedom, and write a one stanza poem about their very own freedom machine. The students explore what their machines look like, how it moves and where it would take them. This workshop produces heart-warming and surprising poetry full of delight and wonder.
This workshop is ideal for a mixed ability classroom.
Who Ya Gonna Call?
Calling all young ghost hunters and master storytellers! Students unleash their imagination as they create spooky stories and characters that will give you goosebumps! Students will learn how to build suspense, conjure eerie settings, and bring their characters to life.
Art Alive
In this workshop students will explore the artworks of contemporary Australian artists including Ramesh Mario Nithiyendran, using their quirky and colourful sculptures to inspire poetry. Students will learn to unpack and decribe visual art and expand their vocabulary. Students will write their own poems bringing art to life by reimagining the stories and characters behind the works.
Video Vortex
Students imagine they have travelled through a vortex and are now trapped inside the world of a retro video game called Video Vortex. They choose their own avatar who progresses through the strange and different levels of this game as they overcome obstacles to “level up” and return home. Students develop skills in sensory writing and focus on world building and narrative structure as they create short episodes/chapters that describe their experiences moving through the game.
What in the World?
In this program students will write news reports of invented traditions celebrated at their own creatively imagined towns. They will be inspired by traditions from far-flung places around the world to create stories, monologues, celebrating town festivities and interviewing imagined residents after a small town incident. Students will develop descriptive writing skills, characterisation and setting creation. Students have the opportunity to write in a news modality, while exercising their creativity and imagination.