This week we will be reading the story 'The Snail and the Whale' by Julia Donaldson. Please follow each day to find out what we will be doing in school and what you can do at home. The link for the story is below.

Monday

WALT make inferences from the text.

Look at the front cover and discuss: What is the title? Who is the author? Do you know any other stories written by this author? If you have not read the story before, have a discussion based around the following questions: What do you think the story is about? Who are the main characters in the story? What do you think will happen in the story? What makes you think that? 

Read the story (if you have the book at home), or use the link above to listen to the story. Discuss what they liked about the story and what they disliked about the story. 

Reread the story to the point where the snail says ‘I feel so small.’  Discuss what has happened to the snail up to this point in the text and quickly recount the snail's journey.  

Discuss what the snail means - he has always been small, so what makes him feel extra small now?  

Sentence prompts: I think the snail feels small because...  

Now find the part in the story where the whale says 'I'm too big.' Has he always been big or just now? Why does he feel too big? 

At school, we will be writing down out ideas. At home, this can be done as a discussion or your child can also write down their ideas too.

Tuesday

WALT identify features of a postcard.

Re-read or listen to the story 'The Snail and the Whale'. Discuss how the snail and a whale are on an adventure together, a bit like a holiday. Have you been on an adventure? When people are on holiday, what might they send to someone to tell them about their holiday?

This week in school we will be writing our own postcards by pretending that we are the snail. What is a postcard? Postcards are short letters. They don't need envelopes. The messages are short and simple. Usually they describe their location and what they are doing. Before we can write a postcard, we first we need to know the key features of a post card. 

Use the PowerPoint below to discuss key features.   

Using the worksheet, identify the key features. Using different colours, create a key and colour in those features.

Wednesday

WALT use question marks and exclamation marks. 

Recap features of a postcard from yesterday. Read post card on PowerPoint (example postcard): What punctuation can you see? Can you see any ! or ? Where do we use these and why? Most postcards include ! and ?  

Now look at the PowerPoint - Questions and Exclamations.

At school we will be having a go at the following activities. 

Challenge 1 -  to add question marks and exclamation marks correctly.  

Challenge 2 - to add question marks and exclamation marks correctly and write their own sentences using question marks and exclamation marks  

Thursday

WALT write a post card including the key features.

Today we are going to write a postcard pretending to be the snail.  

Re read or listen to the story The Snail and The Whale. Talk about the features of a postcard. 

Imagine you are the snail and that you are writing a postcard telling the other snails about where you are.  

Think about your five senses: what can you see, hear, taste, smell and feel? Think about what adjectives you could use.  

Discuss ideas and model writing a post card highlighting key features and using ! and ?.   

Activity 1 - to write a postcard including key features, adjectives and using ! & ?. 

Activity 2 - to design the front of the postcard.

Friday

WALT re-read and edit our work.

Today we will be looking at our postcards and checking they make sense. We will be looking to see if we have all of our punctuation - capital letters, full stops, finger spaces, spelling, question marks and exclamation marks. Can we add any adjectives?

In school, we use a green pen to edit our work.

Once you have completed this, you may like to watch the short film of the story.