From Kensuke’s Kingdom to The Explorer

Last half term, we finished reading Kensuke’s Kingdom in our guided reading lessons. The children loved following Michael’s incredible journey and exploring the challenges he faced on the deserted island. Now, we have moved on to studying The Explorer and the children are already making thoughtful links between the two stories—spotting similar themes of adventure, survival and discovery.

We have been particularly impressed with how well the children are using the vocabulary they have already learnt in our South America topic lessons to make connections with The Explorer. Words and phrases linked to the rainforest, wildlife and geographical features are being confidently used to discuss the story, showing a great understanding.

In writing lessons, we have been focusing on creating dialogue between two characters. The children have been following key rules for writing dialogue:

• Always start a new line for a different speaker.
• Use inverted commas (speech marks) around the words that the character says.
• Begin the spoken sentence with a capital letter.
• Use punctuation correctly inside the speech marks.
• Include a reporting clause (e.g., he said, she asked) to show who is speaking.
• Use actions or adverbs to show how something is said, if it adds to the meaning.

Our dialogue unit has been based around Kensuke’s Kingdom, where we have been exploring the personalities of Kensuke and Michael. The children have used what they understand about each character’s traits to create engaging dialogue that reflects how the characters might actually speak and respond to each other.

This week, we are taking our learning further with an independent writing task. The children will be writing dialogue between any two characters they have already explored—not just from Year 5 books, but also from Year 4 texts—giving them the chance to showcase their understanding of character and dialogue skills.
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We are really proud of the progress the children are making in both guided reading and writing. They are thinking deeply about characters, making links across texts and applying their vocabulary and writing skills with confidence. We can’t wait to see the final masterpieces on Friday!

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