Calling all Children of Lockdown. This is your chance to go down in history. Storychest is creating a digital time capsule of the impressions of children during this extraordinary time. All entries will be displayed on a dedicated Children of Lockdown website and will be archived by the British Library as part of the UK Web Archive.
I have been using the Storychest app in lockdown to make our own memories but now we are being asked to save up those memories and open them up to future generations.
When lockdown started I talked with my children about how this was history in the making, that in the future children will learn about this time in history like they learn about the plague or the Great Fire of London.
I explained that people will look back on how we handled the pandemic and they will discuss how we stayed at home for three months and what we did each day. How schools shut their doors and parents became the teachers.
With that in mind, Storychest would like you to create something that captures your reflections of lockdown. It could be something written (like a story, a poem or even a rap) or a picture (like a painting or a drawing). If it’s a written piece, it doesn’t have to be a particular length, but if it’s a story, they have a limit of 1,000 words.
Some ideas include:
- What are the positives and negatives of lockdown?
- What have you missed during lockdown?
- What have you enjoyed during lockdown?
- Have you learnt anything new during lockdown?
- How has your day changed during lockdown?
- How have the activities that you were used to doing changed during lockdown?
- What are you looking forward to doing when this is all over?
- Do you think that you’ll do anything differently to how you did it before lockdown, when this is all over?
- What would be your lockdown survival kit?
- Do you have any funny stories from lockdown?
- Is there a song that reminds you of lockdown?
It would be great to get your children involved in this fabulous competition, you could also let their school know as they may wish to share it with the school community.
We still have a couple of weeks before the school holidays start and we are all running out of home learning inspiration. This opportunity could reignite their enthusiasm for writing!
The plan is that all children will be returning to the classrooms in September and this is a great way to reflect on the time they have had at home with mum and or dad as teachers.
How amazing would it be to have your memories and creations stored for future generations. This gives our children the opportunity to make their mark and become real life historians!
Poems, stories, or pictures can be submitted for the Children of Lockdown Digital Time Capsule up until the 26th July. In addition to the children’s work being stored in the digital time capsule; there is also a competition to find the most creative response in each age category that will be judged by children’s authors: Nicola J Rowley, Janey Jones and Rhys Brisenden.
Winners in each age category will receive National Book Tokens. Nicola J Rowley, award-winning author of Mug the Wumph the Dancing Wizard, said: “This competition is a great opportunity for the children of today to record how they experienced lockdown, to help the children of tomorrow. I’m really looking forward to reading all of the entries that will be sent in for this landmark historical project.”
To enter Children of Lockdown, you have until 7pm on 26th July to upload your entry. All entries will be displayed on a website and the British Library will be saving them in an archive, so don’t include personal information that could identify you easily. Winners will be announced on 17th August on Storychest’s Facebook page and website. You can read more about Children of Lockdown and submit your entry here https://childrenoflockdown.storychest.com/
