Story Planning and Writing Bundle

Planning a Story
An English activity to help children to plan a story in a step by step manner. This activity breaks down story planning into small chunks and enables children to plan each stage of the story. The activity encourages lots of talk and children enjoy sharing their ideas about the story. The activity encourages children to think about and describe their character, the setting and the time of their story. Children then plan the problem, what happens first, then and next and then the solution and the ending. The activity gives children different ideas and demonstrates to children that not all stories need to be the same as we all have different ideas and suggestions. I often take several days to work through this activity and to build story plans with the children and find that rereading our story plans regularly helps children when they reach the writing stage. This activity could be used in Early Years to introduce story planning and oral retelling of a story to the children or in Key Stage 1 to support children with story planning and story writing.

Writing a Story
An English story writing activity to support children when writing a story. Children plan their story using a story plan. This activity then demonstrates to the children how to write each part of their story using the story plan. I use this activity over several days to support children to write their story and will often cover several parts in one lesson with mini plenaries in between reminding children what their writing needs. Children like the little girl who pops up to ask questions to improve the story.

The activity could be used in Early Years for orally retelling a story or in Key Stage 1 for writing a story.