Writing

Term 4 - A Losing Tale

What would happen if we lost the happy endings to stories? Imagine the tears at bedtime!

To start the new term, we will be looking at the book "The Lost Happy Endings", by Carol Ann Duffy. 

A fantastic and magical tale about what happens when, one night, a wicked witch steals the happy endings to bedtime stories. It is up to Jub, the keeper of the happy endings, to save the day and ensure sweet dreams everywhere in this lyrical story about storytelling.

We will start by learning the story using story mapping in the style of Talk for Writing. Then we will look more in depth at the language and structure of the story, before finally using the structure to help us write our own losing tale. 

Term 3

Instructions

Using the Talk for Writing model, we will be learning a set of instructions for 'How to trap a dragon.' We will look at the features of instructional writing before innovating a set of instructions as a class. The children will then have the opportunity to write their own instructions for how to trap a mythical creature.

Poetry: Creating Images

This term we will be exploring poetic devices such as similes, alliteration  and metaphors used by poets to create an image. We will scaffold this work around the poem 'The Magic Box.
 

'The Magic Box' by Kit Wright

I will put in the box

the swish of a silk sari on a summer night,
fire from the nostrils of a Chinese dragon,
the tip of a tongue touching a tooth.

I will put in the box

a snowman with a rumbling belly
a sip of the bluest water from Lake Lucerene,
a leaping spark from an electric fish.

I will put into the box

three violet wishes spoken in Gujarati,
the last joke of an ancient uncle,
and the first smile of a baby.

I will put into the box

a fifth season and a black sun,
a cowboy on a broomstick
and a witch on a white horse.

My box is fashioned from ice and gold and steel,
with stars on the lid and secrets in the corners.
Its hinges are the toe joints of dinosaurs.

I shall surf in my box
on the great high-rolling breakers of the wild Atlantic,
then wash ashore on a yellow beach
the colour of the sun.    

Term 2

The texts we will be using this half term are Zeraffa Giraffa by Dianne Hofmeyr and The Egyptian Cinderella by Shirley Climo.

Term 1

Our stimulus for writing this half term has been the wonderful story 'The Rhythm of the Rain' by Grahame Bake-Smith. From tiniest raindrop to deepest ocean, this beautifully illustrated book celebrates the water cycle and captures the remarkable movement of water across the earth. The children have been generating some brilliant vocabulary to describe the story settings as we followed the journey of a little boy Isaac's jar of water that he emptied into a pool. It raced the sparkling streams and tumbled over waterfalls, rushed through swollen rivers and eventually burst out into the vast open sea before it began its cycle all over again. Our learning culminated in the children writing in role as this jar of water to produce some lovely diary entries.