Stories from Space: Descriptive Writing

#TheCompleteSeries6lessons

Over six lessons, your Year 5 children will learn how to identify and use some effective features of descriptive writing, including precise vocabulary, vivid sensory details and figurative language, all through space-themed activities. They then apply this knowledge to their own writing, where they are challenged to describe an imaginary planet and its landscape.

This Stories from Space KS2 Descriptive Writing planning pack has everything you need to develop your Year 5 class's descriptive writing skills - there are detailed lesson plans, engaging and informative slide shows for the teaching input, and a range of differentiated worksheets and activity ideas to suit most abilities and learning styles.

#Lesson1FeaturesofDescriptiveWriting

In this first Features of Descriptive Writing KS2 lesson, your Year 5 class will identify some of the features that make descriptions effective.

They will analyse space-themed example texts and discuss the use of precise language, vivid sensory details and figurative language, and the effect this has on the reader's ability to picture the scene in their mind.

This Features of Descriptive Writing KS2 lesson pack has everything you need - a detailed plan, a set of informative slides for the teaching input, and differentiated worksheets and activity ideas.

#Lesson2PreciseVocabulary

Your Year 5 class will learn about the importance of using effective vocabulary in this descriptive writing lesson, and how careful synonym choice can help to create vivid pictures for the reader.

They will be encouraged to use thesauruses and dictionaries to discuss, choose and use the most precise and effective vocabulary for different space-themed sentences.

Including a detailed plan, an engaging slide show and a range of differentiated worksheets and activity ideas, this KS2 Stories from Space lesson has everything you need for an out-of-this-world English session!

#Lesson3VividSensoryDetails

In this Stories from Space KS2 English lesson, children will explore how the inclusion of vivid sensory details, and the words chosen to describe them, can affect the mood or atmosphere created within a piece of writing.

Your Year 5 children will then be challenged to apply what they have learnt when writing or improving a description designed to evoke a particular mood or atmosphere.

This Vivid Sensory Details Lesson Pack contains everything you need - a detailed plan, a set of engaging and informative slides for the teaching input, and a selection of differentiated worksheets and activity ideas!

#Lesson4FigurativeLanguage

Use this Figurative Language KS2 English lesson to teach your class how to write effective space-themed descriptions.

Your Year 5 class will focus on exploring the effect of four different types of figurative language: similes, hyperbole, personification and onomatopoeia, before being challenged to create some examples of their own using space scenes as inspiration!

A detailed lesson plan, a set of slides for the teaching input, and differentiated worksheets are included within this Figurative Language KS2 English lesson pack.

#Lesson5DevelopingIdeas

In this penultimate Stories from Space KS2 Descriptive Writing lesson, your children will begin to develop ideas for a space-themed description, using what they have learnt in previous lessons.

Your Year 5 class will be challenged to make notes for log entries that are to be sent back to Earth which describe a new planet and its landscape in detail. A range of different Planets and Landscapes Picture Cards are included within the lesson pack to help children develop their ideas, as well as a detailed lesson plan and set of slides for the teaching input.

#Lesson6DescribingaNewPlanet

Use this Writing a Description KS2 lesson to give your Year 5 class the chance to demonstrate everything they have learnt to create an out-of-this-world description in the form of log entries to Earth!

They are challenged to include precise vocabulary, vivid sensory details and figurative language when describing their planet and its landscape.

This final Stories from Space KS2 English lesson pack includes a detailed plan and an engaging slide show presentation, as well as differentiated worksheets and activity ideas.

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Curriculum Objectives covered

• use dictionaries to check the spelling and meaning of words
• use the first three or four letters of a word to check spelling, meaning or both of these in a dictionary
• use a thesaurus

• identifying the audience for and purpose of the writing, selecting the appropriate form and using other similar writing as models for their own
• noting and developing initial ideas, drawing on reading and research where necessary
• in writing narratives, considering how authors have developed characters and settings in what pupils have read, listened to or seen performed
• in narratives, describing settings, characters and atmosphere and integrating dialogue to convey character and advance the action
• assessing the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing
• proposing changes to vocabulary, grammar and punctuation to enhance effects and clarify meaning

• using expanded noun phrases to convey complicated information concisely