Y6 - Paradise Sands: The Prequel

Our writing unit this week has been based on a really engaging and beautifully illustrated book called 'Paradise Sands' by Levi Pinfold. Four siblings travel through the desert to visit their mother in hospital, but on the way they come across a palatial, abandoned Art Deco building: 'Paradise Sands'. Once a luxury hotel and spa in its hay-day, this now empty and atmospheric white building stands empty - but not entirely... a mysterious figure called The Teller resides there in the form of a lion, casting spells upon his visitors and turning them into animals. In order for her brothers to be set free, our main character must endure 3 days without eating or drinking. At the end of the book, we learn that the children's mother also went through a similar ordeal when she was younger. 

This was the stimulus for Year 6 to write their own prequel to the story from their mother's younger perspective, packed full of all the skills they had been practising in their short-burst exercises leading up to this final piece:

Setting description
Similes, metaphors and personification
Dialogue to advance the action
Descriptive reporting clauses
Advanced punctuation such as semi-colons
Relative clauses

I have been so impressed with how much everyone in the class have pushed themselves throughout this unit to produce what I think is their strongest writing to date in Year 6. 

A big well done, everyone! 

Dan