The Story
Curriculum Area Link:
Language and Literacy
Listen to, respond to and explore stories, poems, songs, drama, and media texts through the use of traditional and digital resources and recreate parts of them in a range of expressive activities.
1. Remember the Story
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Literacy: Talking
Use the Narrative Prompts powerpoint to help the children remember the narrative. The images are repeated twice – the first includes questions to guide the discussion, the second set is just images and allows for child-led discussions.
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Literacy: Writing
Use the Story Ordering Activity (differentiated) to help the children remember the narrative.
The Arts: Drama/ Art
Print out the Character and Scene Cards.
Drama
Give the children a character card each and ask them to think about how this character walks, talks, acts, feels.
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Now pair the children up into Wilbur and Heathcliffe pairs and ask them to act out ONE thing that Wilbur did to help Heathcliffe feel better.
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You can use Narrative Prompts powerpoint (slide 4 or 9) to support.
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Art
Ask the children to sit still and show them slide 5 or 10 from Narrative Prompt powerpoint. Ask them to think about all the magical things that Wilbur and Heathcliffe might see.
Can they do their own still image of one of these characters (ie. mermaid, mountain man, dancing tree, elf, or something they made up themselves?)
Drama or Art
In groups the children can create a small magical scene that comes alive when Wilbur/ Heathcliffe are still. They could act this out or draw it.
2. Respond to the Story
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Literacy: Talking
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What did they think about the story? Ask the children to rate it 0 – 5 stars.
(You could get them to show you this physically – with one side of the classroom being 5 and the other 0 or using thumbs up, down, in the middle, or with numbers on white boards.) -
What did they like about it?
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What did the children think the story was about?
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What would make the story better?
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What was the best bit of the story?
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Literacy: Writing
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Use the Story Review Writing Frame for children to respond to the story.
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3. Create Your Own Story​​
Character
Wilbur and Heathcliffe are two characters created by illustrator Corrina Askin, inspired by Cave Hill in Belfast. Can the children think of a place they know and create a character that lives in that place?
Use the Create a Character worksheets to design their own forest character –(differentiated options to choose from).
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Story
Now ask the children to imagine that your forest character is having a bad day.
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What could have happened to him/ her?
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How will your character make themselves feel better?
This can be done as any of the below:
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Talking and Listening task - with the children telling each other their stories.
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Drama task - with the children creating stories together and acting them out.
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Or as a Writing task. You can use the Create Your Own Story writing frame.
Talking or acting out the stories before writing, can really help cement the story and leads to better writing outcomes.​​
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