Lila and the Secret of Rain

Lila and the Secret of Rain

For months the sun has burned down on Lila’s Kenyan village. It is too hot to gather firewood, too hot to weed the garden, even too hot to milk the cow. Without rain the well will run dry and the crops will fail. Lila is so worried that when her grandfather whispers to her the secret of rain, she decides to go and talk to the sky herself. How Lila saves the village by telling the sky the saddest thing she knows is told in David Conway’s elegant and spare prose style, which is complemented perfectly by Jude Daly’s beautiful and poignant illustrations.

Main Focus: Character Study - Lila

This resources explores more about Lila and encourages your class to reflect on her.

We have differentiated this resource so that you can choose which would best suit your class. We have included a blank template with questions and things to reflect on, as well as multiple choice.

Main Focus: Adjectives

This resource aimed at Year 1 and Year focuses on adjectives throughout the story of The Secret of Rain.

Your children can either highlight the adjectives within the sentences or use the word bank to insert the adjectives to complete the sentences.

Main Focus: Persuading the Sky

In this activity, we look at how Lila tries (and succeeds) at persuading the sky to stop the sun from shining and start the rain.

Your class can read through and tick the statements to see if it was used successfully to persuade the sky. You can also allow your class to reflect more on persuasive writing and think about how Lila persuaded the sky in the story and the reasons for it.

This resource explores…

Tips on how to persuade

Persuading mean convincing. We want something to think the way we do, believe what we believe or change someone’s mind.  You are sharing your OPINION.

• Opinion – Persuasive writing is your opinion.
• Be personal – use words such as ‘I’ and ‘we’.
• Use questions – to encourage people to think.
• Use feelings/emotions – show how it makes you feel.
• Include Facts – Facts are true statements.
• Include consequences – What will happen if people don’t listen?

We also highlight how each of these strategies were used in the story.

Main Focus: Story Sequencing

This is a story sequencing activity that encourages your class to recreate the story of The Secret of Rain in chronological order.

Your KS1 class will read the events and begin to order them. It might be useful to allow your class to cut out the events so they can order and reorder should they need to.

Main Focus: Capital Letters and Full Stops

This is a punctuation resource that focuses on capital letters and full stops.

Your class must include capital letters for: the beginning of sentences, opening speech and proper nouns. We had added in simple and complex sentences to add in full stops.

We have differentiated this resource to cater for Y1 and Year 2 classes. Your class will underline the letters that should be capital letters and add in the full stops to punctuate the sentences.

Main Focus: Homophones

This is a challenging Y2 activity that focuses on homophones and near homophones. Your class will read through the sentences and highlight words that are homophones or they can choose the homophone that completes the sentences.

Main Focus: True or False?

This is a true or false activity linked to the entire story of Lila and the Secret of Rain.

Your KS1 class will read through the sentences and decide whether the statements are true or false.

This is a useful resource to see how much of the story your Year 1 / Year 2 class can remember.

Main Focus: Non-Fiction - Water Cycle

What is the water cycle?

This book provides a good opportunity to explore this question with your class.

Your class will learn key information regarding evaporation, condensation, precipitation and collection, begin to recognise the sequence  and understand the importance of the water cycle for life on earth.

There is an information sheet and question sheet as well as a multiple choice question sheet.

Main Focus: Vocabulary Extension

We have taken some of the lovely vocabulary used in The Secret of Rain and created three resources to help your Year 1 | Year 2 class understand the words used in context of the story as well as looking at a few definitions.

The resource and vocabulary are quite challenging so the working with some of Year 1 children in a focus group is recommended. That way you can discuss as you complete this activity linked to vocabulary.