All children will benefit from discussing a story they have read or listened to with you at home. A good way to check if your child has understood the story is to ask them to retell it to you. Older children (P4-7 and some P3s) can write a summary – click here to watch a video which shows you and your child how to write a five finger summary.
P3 and 4 children can tell or write a summary of a story they know well or of a picture book you have enjoyed together or of their reading book. Here are some book extracts which P5-7 children and some P4s could read (or read with you) and then write a summary:
Velda the Awesome Viking Extract
Extract from Boy with the Bronze Axe – a more complex text, most suited to P6/7
Picture Activity Sheets for P3-7- being able to ‘uplevel’ a sentence is a good skill to practise at home. When a sentence is very boring, we can call it a ‘sick sentence’. Click here to watch a video to show how to make a ‘sick sentence’ more interesting by adding openers, connectives, interesting vocabulary and making use of punctuation (VCOP). Click here to see a VCOP pyramid: VCOP. The picture activity sheets below this paragraph contain ‘sick sentence’ tasks. They also have a range of other literacy tasks which children in P3-7 can work on. The tasks can be done orally or in writing. The Story Starter gives some context to the picture and children can talk about what might happen next or they can write the next section of the story. Question time is useful to do orally but older children could also write the answers down in sentences making sure they use words from the question to start their answer. Perfect Picture is most appropriate for P3/4 children and Sentence Challenge is best for P5/6/7s – I have provided a link in brackets to give a teaching input to support them with the Sentence Challenge and I suggest watching the video first.
Taking Flight (more info here about alliteration)
Magic Biscuits (more info here on commas in a list)
A Dangerous Pet (more info here about adjectives, adverbs, verbs)
If you have done all of the picture activity sheets on this page, you can click on this link to find a new one each day. You need to put in an email address and create an account to see the daily picture activity sheet. We suggest an adult does this, checking they are happy with the data shared and the data policy of the site. A free account allows you to access the picture activity sheets. We do not suggest you open a paid account – learning should be free! We not suggest a child has their own account.
Additional Literacy Home Challenge for P7s
These Picture Activity Sheets provide a greater level of challenge for our oldest children:
Dragon World (more info here about similes)
Empty Boots (more info here about rhetorical questions)
Older children might also enjoy these literacy challenges:.They can choose the one they would like.
Research Challenge (Chosen Focus)
