Reading

Read as regularly as you can with your children. When reading discuss unfamiliar vocabulary and share the meaning. Children should use phonic knowledge to sound out words they do not know. Reading regularly and exploring the vocabulary used by the author can improve their writing and provide more words for them to express themselves. Also discuss what they are reading, question the children about characters, interesting vocabulary, authors intent and any grammatical features that are present (subheadings, conjunctions, fronted adverbials). Children could write a review of the book or be inspired to write their own story or non-fiction texts! Below are some generic activities you could carry out with any book!

Ideas for Writing

• Create a news article (This could be about something that has happened in your home during lockdown such as someone eating all the Easter chocolate or could be about lockdown in the UK – Do not forget to interview the people in your home to generate quotes to use!)
• Story Writing (Create a story about a character of your choice. You can find pictures and videos to inspire writing at the follow websites: https://www.onceuponapicture.co.uk/ , https://www.literacyshed.com/home.html - please ensure videos are appropriate before showing your child, this website holds KS3 resources.)
• Poetry (Read a selection of poems and create your own. It could be about a family member, lockdown, seasons, toys, Easter…)
• Non-Fiction (Non Chronological Report) (Research a topic that interests you. Create an information text about it using your research. Remember to include headings, subheading, diagrams and high level conjunctions)
• Instructions (Create a set of instructions to instruct how to build something, make something, bake something, cook something, and draw something…)
• Descriptive writing (use rich vocabulary to describe a scene or character. Draw your own scene or character and then describe it.)
• How to Train Your Dragon (During the Summer Term we usually carry out writing activities based on the book ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ by Cressida Cowell. Read or watch the story and then create your own Viking member of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe. Design a dragon for this character and then create an adventure for that character. Or rewrite ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ from your new character’s point of view.)