Jamie Thomas
Jun 16, 20204 min
For anyone new to this blog, the idea is simple - each day my boys (Joshua - 9 and Archie - 8) choose a stimulus that drives the learning. We hope that you enjoy the blog and can take some inspiration from what we love doing - making learning as engaging as possible!
For anyone looking for engaging resources to support home-schooling in English, do make sure that you have downloaded the Talk for Writing booklets: https://www.talk4writing.com/home-school-units/
In the final round of booklets, Kathryn Pennington will be exploring the world of goblins. Today's blog is just one of her fabulous ideas that she kindly shared with me and the boys. We have had such fun getting under the skin of a goblin.
We hope you enjoy!
Information texts
Rhetorical questions
Generalisers
Comparatives / superlatives
Subjunctive
Have you ever wondered what lies at the heart of an evil character? Have you stopped to think what is under the skin? Well, Inside The Villains is an amazing pop-up book that reveals the secrets of the most famous fairytale villains: giants, wolves and witches.
Underneath the clothes and skin of these villains, their inner-most secrets are revealed. Today's blog is inspired by this amazing book – thanks Kathryn Pennington for the idea!
We began by drawing our goblins. The boys love these teach yourself to draw youtube channels, and found this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQ8qPK6FFw0
With the goblins drawn, we then started to cut away their bodies, clothes and skin to reveal what was underneath. Top tip - if you have access to a scalpel then this makes the process much easier (adult supervision required).
We then stuck a blank piece of paper underneath and started the really fun part - deciding what lurked underneath the clothes and skin of a goblin. As you would expect, the boys had some truly disgusting ideas!
Here are the initial drawings and then the templating as we began to open up the bodies:
To aid the writing, we used a variety of fronted adverbials and sentence signposts that are rich in information writing. These included:
Adding on: Additionally,... Also,... Furthermore,... Moreover,...
Adverbs to engage: Amazingly,... Intriguingly,... Surprisingly,... Interestingly,... Weirdly,...
Generalisers: Most / Many / A few / All / The vast majority of / Usually,...
Change direction: However,... On the other hand,... Although,...
Would you know ... if you saw one?
Nearly all of them …
However, …
Furthermore, …
It is well known that
Additionally, …
A minority/majority
Most of them …
Also, …
Finally, the most amazing thing about… is that…
Here are the amazing outcomes - I just love the idea behind this and know you will have fun getting under the skin of your own villains and beasts.
Here are the Spear Goblins with all of their disgusting qualities revealed:
If you are enjoying this blog, please do share it and spread the word. Thank you to all of you who have got in touch and shared some of the outcomes from what you have tried - we love to hear from you.
Do tune in tomorrow where we exploring:
My thanks to Pie Corbett, Julia Strong and the Talk for Writing team for inspiring many of the ideas explored in this blog.
This blog is copyright. All materials herein, texts and supporting resources are copyright to Jamie Thomas & Talk for Writing. They may be used to support children/staff/parents in home-learning ONLY and not for commercial gain or for training or sharing widely, in their original form or any variations. They must also not be shared online or on any social media platforms without prior permission.