English - Adventure Story Planning
Yesterday, we looked at examples of different adventure stories. Now we are moving onto planning our own story. On MyOn there is a wonderful book called "Adventure Stories: Writing Stories" (search for it in the library tab). This book goes into detail in the basic teaching sequence for creative writing.
You don't need to go through the whole book with your child but it might be interesting for you to see how the whole skill goes through stages. I will outline the main parts below but it is worth knowing that the story mountain idea is frequently used in school as a method of structuring stories across many genres:
Step 1 - The Setting - It is very important to stress that the work outlined here would represent 2 or 3 days of work in class. Don't try to do everything at once or rush, imaginative writing is a slow process; it took Tolkien 12 years to write "The Lord of The Rings!"
Naming and describing features of your setting is important, it will give your story a sense of place. We are not going to use a pirate ship but an exotic island in the middle of the ocean as our setting. We will use this poster as our inspiration:
Have a look at the picture and pick out all the things you can see. (There's a copy on our class page on the website).
TASK - Year 1's, try to make a list of some of the things you can see. Extend to adding adjectives each object:
e.g. crashing waves, tall trees, dark clouds.
TASK - Year 2's, try to develop these descriptions into a sentence with this structure:
Adjective + Noun + Verb + Where
(a describing word + the feature + what is it doing + where it is doing it)
e.g. The curved waves crashed against the rocks.
The yellow lightning flashed across the black sky.
If we consider these factors with the possible characters in our poster we can begin to consider why our character is at the island. Below are some star bullet points that can help you make your decision but if you are feeling imaginative don't feel limited to these:
In my example (and remember it is important to model and write alongside your child if you can) I am going to choose that the characters are looking for something and are shipmates. Look at the poster - pick an individual who will be your main character. I might choose the boy in the middle of the poster collecting wood:
TASK - Year 1's, draw a picture of the character you choose in the middle of the page and around it add some words that describe your character. These can be about appearance (e.g. young, red headscarf, brown shorts) or add qualities - what the character is like - (e.g. brave, friendly, helpful).
TASK - Year 2's, you can extend this by thinking more about the character's back story (e.g. this is his first adventure at sea OR he is being forced to work with a mean crew of pirates).
I hope you enjoy your first steps in building your story world together!
Maths - Making Amounts
Yesterday, we looked at counting coins we had in our money work. The opposite of this skill is making amounts. This is where we are given an amount - 15p - and we need to select the correct coins to make this amount. This game, again, takes us through these steps nicely:
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/money/toy-shop-money
Firstly, we need to choose if we are working with one coin (blue button) or mixed coins (pink button).
Firstly, we need to choose if we are working with one coin (blue button) or mixed coins (pink button).
Now, Year 1's one coin is a good place to start but do not completely disregard this, Year 2's as it is a good place to practice our times tables for 2, 5 and 10 when we count on in steps with these amounts. Consider this from the 5p game:
Here we will need to count in 5's until we get to 45. We could then record this, Year 2's as 5x9=45 or 9x5=45 (it does not matter which way round you elect to record it).
Clicking on the blue menu button in the corner will take you back to the main menu.
So it is not as simple as Year 1 = One Coin; Year 2 = Mixed Coins.
Indeed, Year 1's can get much from the mixed coins games too, particularly Up to 20p:
In this game you need to select the coins from along the bottom to make them appear in the white box until you have the exact amount:
Now, I could just choose 1p seven times. But challenge yourself to make it in the fewaest coins. The coins available in a line at the bottom help here. Work down them systematically - can I take the £2? No too much. £1? No....10p? Too much. 5p? Yes! OK - another 5p? No too much. 2p? Yes.
Again, all these screen games could be replicated using real coins and price tags. The games are not superior to practical activities but they do neatly show the progression in the skills.
Wow - that turned into a long one! Please don't be over-awed if you feel that this is too much. Pick and choose what you wish and spread the work out over time.
Hope you have a wonderful day.
Key Stage 1 Team
