If you are a primary school teacher on the lookout for a different idea for written work on describing characters, you may be interested in this clever website called Build Your Wild Self. You can create your own characters which range from relatively normal individuals to zany alien-like creatures.

It is really easy to choose from a range of characteristics and when you are happy with your creation you can produce a print-out. This is a useful feature if you want your pupils to work individually. Alternatively, you could have some fun together creating a character as a class activity as it works very well on an interactive whiteboard.

You can select from a range of backgrounds, which is helpful if you want to establish a setting for the character should you wish your pupils to produce narrative writing.

The website works well in conjunction with the My Monster website which I featured in a previous blog post or with the 'Monster Shopping Trip' animated story for Key Stage 1 pupils which has alien characters. The 'Build Your Wild Self' site is suitable for either Key Stages 1 or 2 (ages 6 - 11) because it lends itself to more detailed descriptive writing.