The Boy Who Grew Dragons

The Boy Who Grew Dragons by Andy Shepherd

This is a popular novel for Year 2 and Year 3 classes, that is filled with humour, imagination and excitement.

Your class will be explored to a breadth of fantastic vocabulary and a wonderful storyline.

‘We grow dragons. And I can tell you this – they’re a lot more trouble that cucumbers.’

Main Focus: Question or Statement - Chapter 1

In this KS1 activity, your class will read through the sentences taken from Chapter 1 of The Boy Who Grew Dragons and add in the missing punctuation.

This activity is aimed at Year 2 classes and focuses on question marks and full stops. Your class must decide whether it is a question or statement and add in the correct punctuation.

Main Focus: Vocabulary - Chapter 1

Andy Shepherd has included some amazing vocabulary in Chapter 1 of The Boy Who Grew Dragons book that you should spend time with your class to explore.

Your class will read the passage and then look for words to match to the meanings.

Words include: hindrance, occupy, nuisance, persuaded, monstrous, thorough and more…

Main Focus: Contractions - Chapters 2 and 3

In this activity, your Year 2, KS1 class will replace two words with a contraction where possible. Your class will write the contraction above the two words.

In this activity, your class will show their knowledge of how they can change two words into a contraction. They will need to have experience already with recognising and creating contractions.

The contractions your class will cover are:

what’s, I’ve, wasn’t, you’ve, I’d, she’s, it’s, isn’t, doesn’t and that’s.

Main Focus: Character Description - Chapter 4

In chapter 4, the author describes the dragon in great detail. Your Year 2 class will try to recall the information after reading the chapter or they can use the information provided to draw the dragon.

Main Focus: Finding Synonyms - Chapter 6

In this activity, your class will read the short sentences and highlight the synonym of the chosen words from Chapter 6.

This is a great activity to help your class develop their vocabulary, their reading for meaning skills and ability to locate information.

Once your class has completed this activity, they will then read the rest of the chapter, select a few of their own words and challenge a friend.

Main Focus: Identifying Speech - Chapter 8

This is a punctuation resource that focuses on pages 59-61, chapter 8 of The Boy Who Grew Dragons.

Your class must identify the direct speech in the passages and highlight them or add in inverted commas, whichever you choose for them. They can also colour code the speech to add another level of difficulty. E.g. If Grandad is talking, highlight it red, The man, highlight it green. etc.

Main Focus: Comprehension - Chapter 10

This is a comprehension aimed at Year 2 classes and includes a resource that gives your class the opportunity to write their answers, or to choose from the multiple choice answers.

There are a range of questions styles in this activity. From retrieval, inference, using and applying and more…

Main Focus: Characters - Chapter 12

This activity focuses on the characters mentioned in chapter 12 of the book.

Who is it?

Your class will read the sentences and decide which one of the characters it is referring to.

This is a simple recollection activity, but many of the sentences teach us something about the characters.

There is a common theme in this chapter of anger. It highlights a range of events that make particular characters cross. Lolli is cross when the book is taken from her, Mrs Olive is cross when people mistreat her books, Liam is cross when he gets hit on the head with a book, Thomas is cross when he thought Flicker may have been injured under the book.

Main Focus: Komodo dragons

We have created this non-fiction resource linked to Komodo dragons. Your class will learn more about them, their weight, length, their habitat, diet, where they live and their endangered status.

Once they have read all the factual information, they will answer the multiple choice question resource.

Komodo dragons - Video Resource

Follow Andy on his journey to Indonesia in search of the largest lizards on Earth, the Komodo dragons.