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Story openings

In Year 4 we have been looking at story structure. We discussed openings and thought about how they needed to catch the readers interest.
We decided that our opening paragraph would introduce the setting of the story.
The children were asked to use adjectives to make their story openings more interesting and to add detail.
Here are a few examples of their opening paragraphs on the setting of an alien planet.

Alien Adventure

The shining golden rocket shot through the dark starry night sky. The flames shooting from the tail of the rocket lit up the sky with a bright streak of fire. Suddenly another light lit up the night sky as a meteor came hurtling through the air. Before we could take evasive action the meteor crashed into us! Our rocket smashed into pieces, but luckily we had space suits on so we could survive. A powerful force which we couldn’t resist was sucking us down on to a strange mysterious planet. We were drawn closer and closer as we realized with alarm that it was a vortex which was sucking us into the planet . As we came ever nearer we could see that the surface of the planet was purple and sandy. Would we be welcome in this alien place?


Matthew Bell


Splege


The shimmering, silvery rocket zoomed over the star spangled darkness of the Milky Way. The rocket and its eager crew whizzed through thousands of known planets until they came to a planet which they had never seen. It was a tiny, dark brown and rocky wilderness. Then they noticed a fat short dark green alien standing on the desolate landscape. They turned on the super sensitive speaker and could hear the alien who, of course, was speaking an alien language. Hurriedly, they turned on their voice translator.
“This is the planet Splege and you are not welcome!� said the alien raising its husky bubbling voice
The alien clenched its splogy fist and waved it angrily towards the spaceship.
At that moment the spaceship let out a loud hiss!
“Emergency shut down!� the computer said and all the computers shut down. A great boom sounded from the engine area and suddenly they began to fall into the planet.
The furious alien clenched and shook its fist even harder and without warning a black hole appeared directly in their path.
They were falling, falling ……………..

Hal Robinson

The Mysterious Planet


Like a thunderbolt the glistening, silver UFO shot through the star spangled darkness of the Milky Way on its way to the mysterious planet. It was like an eruption of silver glitter forming a majestic shape. The planet below gave the impression that its people were pouring buckets of scarlet lava into ditches to make magnificent crimson rivers. Vivid flashes of explosive electricity burst up from the scorching, unknown planet below. As we watched in fascination, it boiled in anger and with terror in our hearts we observed that it had started to shoot fiery, red - hot rays of lava in our direction. We realized with growing alarm that we were directly in its path. Could we alter course or would we be destroyed………..?

Adam Sewell

Gobstopper World

A silver rocket zoomed across the grim black sky and was expected to crash land on a enormous gobstopper. Luckily it shot straight through to an amazing wonder world. Here the sky was made of blue flying saucers and the clouds were made of candy floss. The grass was green marzipan and the sand which could trickle through hands was really sour lemon sherbet. The most exciting part of this wonder world was the dark and milky chocolate boat which was floating on a gooey golden treacle river. A rather interesting and definitely unusual purple man was waiting on the river bank to hand out pieces of delicious light cake to dip in the treacle. The clear lemonade sea and the yellow sherbet sand were so good you just wanted to laze there eating and drinking. So if you ever go into space look out for the enormous fantastic gobstopper!

Helena Boldvig



The Delicious Planet

We gently floated down to land on this never before explored planet. What wonderful adventures were in store for us as we gingerly opened the door of our gleaming silver rocket and stepped outside? This planet was very colourful with soft wispy clouds which looked like candyfloss. As I drifted over my face came into contact with the pinky white mass and to my great surprise ….. it was candy floss! We couldn’t wait to explore this wondrous place further. The sea was made of warm melted chocolate while the sand was made entirely of sherbet. How delicious! Rabbit shaped chocolate bounced around us on streets made of biscuits. We were surrounded by sweets and chocolate everywhere. In front of us was a massive mountain which looked just like a gigantic gobbstopper. Which way should we turn in this truly delightful place?


Charlotte Dibley

Comments (2)

Wow! what wonderful story openings. I teach a Year 4 class in Winsford Cheshire and at the moment we are loking at story openings - I am trying to sway my children from "One fine day..." I hope this will give them some food for thought. Well done to you all. I think your website is FAB!!!

Thank you so much for sharing the amazing work your pupils are doing. My Year Five class were so motivated after reading the fantastic story openings written by your pupils. Keep up the excellent work!

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