Learning at home: literacy resources for children in Key Stage 2
The following resources contain a wealth of ideas and activities to stimulate 7 to 11-year-olds’ interest in reading and writing during the lockdown. As well as being educational, importantly they are fun! Most are activities which children can do on their own, while parents are working or busy.
Reading
- Audible Stories has a large collection of audio books for children, including classics such as Jungle Book and Robinson Crusoe.
- Researchify have six well-known classics as audiobooks, with a copy of the text (Alice, Wind in the Willows, Railway Children, Jungle Book, Peter Pan, Black Beauty).
- Some fun activities based on the Harry Potter stories, including quizzes and craft.
- Loads of videos with poetry and story readings and fun activities by Michael Rosen.
- Older children who are hooked on books will love these illustrated British Library collections. Themes include Journeys, Fear, Home and Belonging, and Changing the World.
If your children are running out of books to read
Love Reading is a book recommendation site. A summary and extract is provided for every book. At the bottom of the page, you will find links for many different genres (science fiction, the natural world, history, ghost stories, graphic novels). There are recommendations by age, and a blog for parents.
You will be able to borrow many of these books from public libraries, which generally use BorrowBox and Libby for ebooks and audiobooks. Most public libraries are open online.
Poetry
Poetry by Heart is a fantastic resource dedicated to reading poems aloud. The 7+ Timeline has over 100 poems organised by date.
Writing
- Easy-to-use guides on writing stories from BBC Bitesize. (If your child needs help with punctuation, try these short videos)
- A set of really imaginative activities in response to any book your child is reading.
- An imaginative British Library project with guides on how to write, and illustrations from children’s books.
- This initiative invites children to write their own diary. The project uses social media channels and there are plans for publication, but with good safeguarding advice. A section for 8-12 year olds has tips from over 30 writers and illustrators.
- Puffin Books has video advice on planning detective stories, creating magical worlds, and Greek legends. There are also ingenious writing prompts.
- Pobble has a picture for every day of the year (though you can use them anytime). Each is chosen to stimulate creative writing, and includes a starter text, some questions, a short language exercise, and a drawing