Blog post published 11 November 2025
In the October holidays, The Swot Shop ran a Creative Writing Masterclass for students in Years 3-6. The program offered a perfect mix of creativity and academic growth – helping students find their writing voice while achieving something they can be proud to share.
Over three afternoons, students were guided by one of our qualified and experienced teachers through the entire process of crafting their own illustrated book, from the first spark of an idea to the final copy. Students were welcome to either type their story or hand write it and, depending on which class they attended, they either wrote to the theme of ‘rainforest’ or ‘lake’.
At the end of the course, we awarded prizes to outstanding achievements in the course and crowned two winning champions, one in Year 3-4 and one in Year 5-6.
Below we share their wonderful stories with you – no doubt you will enjoy their work as much as we did.
A big congratulations to all our participating students and budding writers – your enthusiasm and skills were incredible and the atmosphere during the week infectious. Keep writing!
In January, we’ll be sharing our runner up outstanding stories from the week – stay tuned for more excellent stories.
Water Wonderland at the Pier
Chapter One: The Shallows at the Lake
It started at the lake. On a humid day, the sun was shining. The lake glistened at the presence, and Lance Larrykin was having breakfast with his dad, Shaun Larrykin.
“Want go swim in the shallows in the lake today, Lance?” suggested Shaun.
“I don’t know, depends, will Gigi be there?” asked Lance.
Gigi Tangan was Lance’s best friend. Gigi had black straight hair, tanned skin, and brown eyes. She usually wore a short blue dress, pink velcro shoes, as she hadn’t learnt how to tie her shoes yet, and a large pink bow. She was honest, kind, and helpful.
On the phone, he asked her, “Gigi, do you want to join us on a short trip to Graham Lake?”
“Sure!” said Gigi.
Chapter Two: The Pier
There they were. Standing on the pier. The rowboat gently bobbing next to them. Not too ahead of them was a speed boat swiftly moving.
“I brought diving gear!” said fisherman Bob. Fisherman Bob always wore the same blue denim overalls and rainbow glasses, long polka dot socks, black laced shoes, short brown hair, pale skin, and emerald, green eyes.
“Honk, honk!” honked Gracen the Goose. “Let’s go on a diving adventure!” Gracen honked again.
“But what if we drown like great, great, great, great, great, great grandpa Giorgio? Didn’t he pass away at this very lake!?” squealed Lance.
“Don’t be so negative Lance. That was in the 1400s, and there were barely any safety measures back then,” explained Shaun.
Chapter Three: Diving Deep Down
Worried Lance and confused Gigi were putting on their oxygen masks, and they had no choice but to watch the adults all happy and cheerful. Poor Gracen could not go deep down swimming because of his feathers. Bob was hiding a secret, but little did they know what adventure awaited them.
Chapter Four: Fear and Phobia
They were all ready to go. But one problem remained: Bob had a fear of water!
“I cannot do it! It is too scary!” whimpered Bob.
“That’s a bit over dramatic,” mumbled Lance.
“Be supportive Lance, you fear something too,” bellowed Shaun with his hands on his hips.
“Why not try putting your feet in? Anyway, we are on the shallow side,” suggested Gigi.
Fisherman Bob dipped his feet in and made a thoughtful look. There was pin drop silence.
Then all of a sudden, SPLASH! Fisherman Bob had jumped in and was splashing around and having fun! Gigi and Lance shared confused looks. Then, they jumped in too!
“Well, would ya look at that, Gracen, what a bunch of sillies,” laughed Shaun.
After a while of having fun, everyone moved to the deeper side to start diving. There was another smaller pier that led to the deeper part of the sea. Everyone jumped in one by one. The sea was slightly rough, but no one really minded. It was about lunch time so the whole group was a bit off. Lance looked under the water and saw something glistening unusually…
Chapter Five: The Unusual Glistening
They started swimming when Lance alerted everyone about the unusual glistening. Shaun suggested they move closer, but Gigi doubted the idea as it could be dangerous. Most ignored Gigi and kept swimming.
At last, they reached the glistening. There was some sort of portal around it. Lance gently knocked on it, and a door-like entrance appeared. Lance entered and everybody followed. A blue building was in the middle of the portal. As they walked further, they were granted free air by someone…
Nobody was around, but small shell-like houses were around. Soon, a large conch shell castle appeared…
Chapter Six: The Large and Powerful King
They entered the large conch shell castle, hoping to find some guide. There was a big slide door. It took all four of them to slide it.
“This is so heavy!” wheezed Lance. Once it opened, a large gold throne appeared. Then out of another door came a large, blue figure. It had gold chains over its neck. “Who are you tiny people with no tails?” bellowed the large figure.
“Sorry to interrupt, but we are foreigners and were fascinated by your village, I suppose,” explained Lance in a soft tone.
“Not to be rude, but what is your name and who are you?” asked Gigi in a slightly nervous tone.
“My name is King Conch, the strongest and most powerful king of the sea,” said the large king. Something peculiar about this king was that he looked exactly like a genie.
After a bit of discussion, something fluffy and white appeared.
“Gracen!” cried Gigi. “How did you make it?” asked Gigi.
“I built a high-tech swimsuit to protect my feathers and a sword to protect me,” explained Gracen.
Chapter Seven: The Blue Building
“Since you foreigners are fascinated with my village, you should explore the blue building as it has peculiar sights,” suggested King Conch with a grin on his face.
The group walked into the blue building, and found that this building was built quite differently. The carpet was on the roof, and the ceiling was on floor. All the doors were upside down and there was an anti gravity button. Lance pressed it and they all floated to the carpet on the ceiling.
“Cool, now we can enter the rooms!” exclaimed Lance.
But as they were having fun acting like astronauts, all five of them heard a loud BANG!
The king had locked them inside the blue building! A TV in front of them started blaring:
Complete five challenges
Earn the key
Unlock the door
Good luck
Chapter Eight: The First Challenge
A door opened ahead of them.
“That must be the first challenge!” exclaimed Shaun.
As they entered, a speaker turned on. “Figure out the riddle to earn the key to the next room. You have five minutes,” squealed the speaker.
The riddle was:
I am the middle of sea
I am said when you say cheese
I am in please
You cannot find me in astronaut
What am I?
“Maybe it’s an object, plastic maybe,” suggested Bob.
“A mouth!” Honked Gracen.
Time was running out, 3 minutes left on the clock.
“You find dairy in cheese,” squeaked Gigi.
“Oh, I know, it’s the letter E!” shouted Shaun.
Suddenly, the clock stooped. A hole opened in the floor, and a key dropped from it.
“This must be the key to the second challenge,” squealed Lance. They all ran to the next door.
Chapter Nine: The Second Challenge
Gracen used the key to open the door. Inside was an obstacle course with levels ranging from easy to hard. The easy level was jumping in tires and lasers. The medium level had colonies of ants and lava. Lastly, the most challenging level consisted of a spike slide.
Everyone thought jumping in tires was easy. “The first one is remarkably easy but it’s about to get harder,” remarked Bob with a worried look.
In the second course with the lasers, Gracen tripped on a laser, making him restart. Once he caught up with everyone else, they had reached the ants. “The best way is to run as fast as you can,” explained Lance. So, everyone ran as fast as their legs took them.
Finally, they reached the spike slide, but the spikes disappeared! “That makes it much easier!” exclaimed Shaun.
Once they reached the end, a key magically landed in Lance’s hand.
Chapter Ten: The Third Challenge
The group ran to the door. The door to the the third challenge opened. Inside were about a hundred objects. There was another TV, blaring the text:
There are 106 objects in this room
They all have a pair
One matched wrong, you will be locked up by me in here forever!
You have one minute to match them up
Good luck
“There are so many objects,” commented Lance.
“Don’t waste time, the clock’s ticking!” Bob pointed out.
Everyone ran and picked up objects and scanned the room, but since there were so many of them, it was almost impossible to match them up. There were only thirty seconds left.
But Gracen had a new strategy. He ran across each aisle of objects, with one in his wing. As he ran across the aisles, he kept looking for the one object that was the same as the one in his wing. Finally, he found the matching one. He looked back, exhausted from the running, and saw that everyone had caught on!
Everyone was doing the same thing as Gracen! From above, everyone looked as if this was the word search and everyone were the highlighters. With only ten seconds left, most of the objects were matched except five: a candle, bottle, pencil, box, and a book. They all ran across the room trying to match them.
With seconds left on the clock, all the items were matched! Another key fell from the from the floor as Lance remembered they were still in anti-gravity mode.
Chapter Eleven: The Fourth Challenge
Fisherman Bob caught the the key, and everyone ran to the next room.
“This is the fourth challenge,” claimed Shaun. Inside the room was a gigantic puzzle. On the floor were twenty puzzle pieces.
“I think we are supposed to make the puzzle with these,” assumed Gigi as she put a piece into place. Gracen noticed a clock on the wall. “Times ticking!” honked Gracen, as he put another piece into the puzzle.
It was a blank puzzle, intended for the sides to be solved first. “I think this one goes here,” insisted Lance.
After a while of twisting and turning the pieces around, they were up to the last piece. Shaun put the piece into place and they all cheered!
“That was more stressful than I thought,” approved fisherman Bob.
Then, a key magically appeared taped onto the middle puzzle piece.
Chapter Twelve: The Fifth Challenge
Gracen removed the key and everyone ran to the next room. In the room were five samurai warrior swords. “Woah, I always wanted to touch one of these,” remarked Lance. On the wall ahead of them appeared a word: Fight!
Large robots appeared in front of them. Everyone took their swords and went in fighting position.
Gracen ran forward and chopped a robot’s head off. One down. Five to go.
Lance chopped off a robot arm. Two down. Four to go.
Bob chopped off a robot leg. Three down. Three to go.
Gigi chopped off a robot foot. Four down. Two to go.
Shaun chopped off a robot hand. Five down. One to go.
At last, they all chopped the last robot in half. Inside it was the last key!
Chapter Thirteen: Getting Out
They all ran out. The door unlocked.
As soon as they came out, they ran for the portal.
King Conch started chasing them! He was using his powers to destroy them. Beams of light were coming out of his hands and they looked dangerous.
As soon as they got out of the portal, the king could not hurt them as he was stuck in the portal.
When they reached the surface, everyone climbed up on the pier and took a big gasp of air. Everyone started running home.
“Bye!” called Lance. “Bye!” everyone answered.
When they got home, Lance asked Shaun a question: “dad, can I get a pet fish?”
“Definitely not,” laughed Shaun.
“Just kidding,” Lance clarified.
The Bushfire
Chapter 1
The air was full of humidity. The bright shades of green were everywhere, and the golden rays of sunlight danced through the spots of the rainforest, trying to penetrate the large canopy of leaves hovering over the ground. Thomas woke up with a jolt. His bed would be turning red if it were metal. He felt that he was going to be cooked alive.
“Ow!” he muttered, rolling off his bed and going to wake up his mother, a frail old lady in her late sixties. The explorer hated summer. He hated the heat and preferred cooler weather.
“Dad, come look at my katydid! It’s doing weird tricks.”
That was Thomas’ son, Ben. Ben was one of the children in the world that paid attention to everything. He would observe carefully and point out things nobody would see. He was inquisitive all right, but he could be a bit too curious at times.
“Coming, mate,” Thomas replied to his son as he slowly shook his mother to wake her up. After a few seconds, her eyes fluttered open.
“Hello, dear,” she croaked out and slowly dragged herself to the edge of the bed and stood up in a hunched position and hobbled away to the kitchen. “I’m going to make some tea for us.”
Thomas made his way outside. There stood his son Ben gazing into a glass container. Inside was a makeshift forest that inside dwelled a minute katydid, a small leaf insect that was chocolate brown in colour. Thomas went up to Ben and examined the container. The katydid, which normally would be sitting still, was fluttering and hitting the walls repeatedly.
“Yeah, mate, it is doing some weird things,” answered Thomas to his ever-so-curious child. “Might be the heat. And speaking of which, it’s blistering hot. Come inside to eat your breakfast.”
Ben, like a loyal dog, pulled himself up and made his way to the kitchen. Thomas put a white cloth over the katydid’s container to cool it down and followed his son inside.
Chapter 2
In the kitchen, Thomas’ mother Laura was brewing a pot of tea. She expertly put the kettle on the stove and put the tea leaves in at the right moment for a perfect brew. She was pouring the tea into two China cups when Ben burst into the kitchen.
“I want cereal now!” he said with a commanding tone.
“Calm down, young man,” Thomas called out from behind before stepping into the room. “You’ll get your food soon.”
“You two,” sighed Laura as she handed Thomas his cup of tea, and Ben took a seat, eager for his food. Thomas stirred up a quick bowl of cereal.
“Ben, you want to go on a hike today? It’s been so long since we’ve went on an adventure,” asked Thomas.
Ben barely looked up from scoffing down his cereal to nod and continue munching.
“You two better be safe after the climb,” Laura added on.
“Yeah, yeah,” replied Ben. “We’re always safe.”
Laura gave Ben a questioning look and nodded.
Chapter 3
It was near midday, and the temperature had barely gone down. Trekking through the lush vegetation and greenery, Thomas and Ben slowly made their way to the peak of the hill near the rainforest.
“How much longer do we have to walk?” groaned Ben while trudging behind an enthusiastic Thomas. “Couldn’t we have gone on a cooler day?”
“Sunlight is good for your skin,” replied Thomas with a cheery tone. Ben merely grunted in reply.
After a few hours of hiking, complaining and a lot of breaks, Thomas and Ben finally reached the peak of the hill.
“Finally!” exclaimed Ben as he fell to the ground but quickly jumped up from the heat.
However, Thomas wasn’t paying attention to Ben. He could feel something sinister. He could smell smoke.
He looked around, trying to find the source. Then he saw it. The bushfire. The red angry embers licking and swallowing the green and leaving behind a trail of black and red. And it was headed to their hut and Laura.
Thomas hurriedly tugged Ben and told him to run down the mountain to save Laura.
Chapter 4
Laura was dozing off peacefully for the last few hours. She was unaware of the danger that approached her. That’s when her family burst in.
“Mum, we have to go!” yelled Thomas as he burst in and slowly held her mother up.
“Wha-?” Laura started but Ben and Thomas were already pushing her into the small jeep that Thomas owned. They got her into the Jeep and Ben started talking. He explained that they were in crisis and they had to leave immediately. They left just as their house burst into flames.
They were all in tears. The place they once called home was gone. Demolished. But they knew they had to keep going.
Chapter 5
Thomas, with his great fame and influence as an explorer, figured out a way to help his family. He found a nursing home for his mother. He knew that he couldn’t sustain her and his son at the same time. He enrolled his son at a school and bought a room in an apartment for the two of them. Slowly but surely, they built their lives back. Ben was making friends, Laura was getting the right care she deserved, and Thomas felt like he was being a good dad.
They were traumatised, but the bushfire made their lives even better.
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