Week 2

For your writing challenge this week, we would like you to listen to the story of ‘Dear Zoo’ by Rod Campbell which is available on YouTube. Once you have listened to the story, tell your grown up all of the animals you can remember which were sent from the zoo. Can you remember the reason why the child sent each of the animals back to the zoo?

Can you think of any other animals which might be found in a zoo? Which animal would you like to be sent from the zoo to keep as a pet? Draw a picture of your chosen animal. Why would you want this animal as your pet? Write some words or a sentence to explain what you like about that animal. Encourage your child to write independently using their letter sounds and thinking carefully about each word that they write. Your child may need help to remember their sentence, so practice it together a few times before writing it and remind them of the words whilst they are writing.

To follow on from this challenge you may wish to complete the following activities at home:

• Choose an animal and describe what it looks like – you can label your picture or write a sentence to describe them.
• Can you think of another animal the zoo might have sent? Why wouldn’t the animal be a good pet?
• Print off the story pictures from the class pages on the school website. Can you sequence the pictures into the correct order and retell the story?
• Write a letter to the zoo to send you a pet