Fantasy Stories

In this series of lessons, pupils build up knowledge and skills to write the main events in their own simple fantasy story. Using an existing story as a model, they introduce a new fantasy character within the same story setting. The story follows a simple problem resolution structure as the children in the story need to help the fantasy character in some way. The new story is started as a shared writing task, with pupils going on to add description to introduce their character, using correct punctuation. This unit could be extended into pupils writing their own stories in different settings or with different lead characters, following a similar story structure.

Lesson 1

LESSON +
Pupils begin the unit by starting to read a fantasy story, as a class. They make predictions about the rest of the story, based on their experiences of other fantasy stories and story structure in general. Pupils sequence the story events so far using pictures, and write key words for each scene.
- 4 Activities
- 2 Documents
Lesson 2

LESSON +
Pupils learn about story structure. They dramatise their own solution to a character’s problem. Finally, they read on in the book ‘The Wizard’s Assistant’ to see how the author solved this problem and how the book ends.
- 4 Activities
Lesson 3

LESSON +
Pupils use a sentence from the fantasy story as a model to write their own description to introduce a new character for a different adventure. They learn about using commas to separate items in a list.
- 4 Activities
- 2 Documents
Lesson 4

LESSON +
Now that pupils have chosen a character for their stories, they invent a problem that the character will have to solve. They write up the introduction of the new character and include a line of speech.
- 3 Documents
- 1 Activity
Lesson 5

LESSON +
Pupils plan and write the middle part and ending of their new fantasy stories, focusing on the story’s problem and its eventual resolution.
- 3 Activities
- 2 Documents

Unit Objectives

To recognise main events and characters in stories
To make predictions showing an understanding of ideas, events and characters
To identify the story sequence: opening – a problem of some sort occurs – events to sort it out – ending
To explore situations using improvisation; dramatise part of own story and perform to class or group
To create characters and choose words to describe them, by adapting ideas about typical story characters
To use commas to separate items in a list
To plan and write a section of a story, following a story structure
To use interesting and/or adventurous words and phrases
To use punctuation in simple sentences
To plan a section of narrative within a story structure
To write a story from a plan, including descriptive words and a line of speech
To write in complete sentences using correct punctuation