We are learning about authors this term, focusing on Julia Donaldson and Roald Dahl. If you have any books by these authors at home, your child might enjoy basing their English work around these texts. Use a book to complete the following tasks:
1. Read the story and think about the characters in the story. Describe these using adjectives and expanded noun phrases (i.e. big, red bus; scruffy, hairy dog) and then write descriptive sentences/paragraphs incorporating the noun phrases.
2. Create a story map to show the main parts of the story and retell the story using the created map. Children really enjoy adding in actions when retelling the story and this can aid memory.
3. Use the story map to write the story. This is best done over at least three separate writing sessions, this will ensure children don't rush and are able to include plenty of detail. It is important that children write in full sentences, with capital letters, finger spaces and full stops/question marks/exclamation marks in the right place. Children have been learning to reread and edit their own work to check for these things.
4. Children can change an element of the story and write their own version. Sometimes they change the characters, sometimes they enjoy changing the problem or the ending.
Alternatively, if you do not have any books by these authors at home, children could practise writing stories based on a picture stimulus using the following sheets. Children may have seen the same picture before, but this is ok. They should adapt and write an alternative problem, solution and ending. The focus is to write accurate sentences and include interesting descriptive language.