by Tamsin & Christina
We thought it was time to share a little behind-the-scenes story about one of our creative writing courses for KS2 — The Button That Started It All.
Spoiler alert: it involves a lot of buttons and, somehow, more descriptions of buttons than actual buttons.
Since Seth (our aeruss star and part of our senior management team) mentions buttons quite a bit in his stories, it seemed only natural to create a course that goes into his love for buttons and makes the most of it. Plus, at just two weeks long, it felt like a perfect “bite-sized” creative writing adventure for young people.
But as we started reading through the draft of the course, a very peculiar (and slightly alarming) pattern emerged: we’d accidentally created some kind of literary punishment for children rather than a fun, creative adventure. Every single task involved describing a button. Just a button. Then a different button. Then the button turned magic. Then they had to describe it again — but this time, after it had transformed. It began to feel like we’d founded the world’s first Button Appreciation Society curriculum.
At first, this seemed like an insurmountable problem. We seriously considered scrapping the whole thing. Because in reality, who wants a course that’s basically a button-description marathon? Other than Seth.
Then, after a brief existential crisis and a lot of giggling, we realised there was something undeniably hilarious about the whole thing. Two grown-up humans, crying with laughter over buttons. It still felt like a mistake — just one of those gloriously ridiculous ones. An “OH NO AHAHAHAHA” kind of mistake that needed fixing.
So, we powered on through. We included some plot twists (all our courses follow their own narratives – why would the buttons be any different?), used different writing styles, and made sure learners wouldn’t just be stuck describing buttons forever. (Because no matter how fun buttons are, variety is the spice of writing life.)
Now, The Button That Started It All is a fun course that teaches the art of descriptive writing, all while secretly being about the very thing that nearly ruined it: buttons. Because, as it turns out, there is such a thing as too much description. Especially when you’re describing a button. Then another button. Then the same button but magic now. Over and over and over again. It’s the writing equivalent of being trapped in a haberdashery.
We hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it — and if your child ends up writing about buttons in their sleep, well… you know where that started.
— Tamsin & Christina
Click here to browse our KS2 courses, including The Button That Started It All.