Iliad and Odyssey

Iliad and Odyssey by Gillian Cross

Gillian Cross’s brilliant retellings and Neil Packer’s clever illustrations bring to life Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, two of the greatest stories ever told.

Access our comprehensive scheme of work to support your lessons this term while reading ‘Iliad and The Odyssey’ by Gillian Cross. Our engaging worksheets are designed to challenge students through a range of literacy and Fiction and Non-Fiction text-based activities. This unit focuses on key aspects of vocabulary, grammar, and punctuation, providing a rich and diverse literacy learning journey for your LKS2 children.

Our differentiated activities include tasks like finding evidence, cover discussions, exploring different word types, using speech marks and apostrophes, identifying past and present tense, and applying punctuation accurately. Through these targeted literacy tasks, Lower Key Stage 2 students will gain a deeper understanding of The Iliad and The Odyssey book, exploring the dynamic characters, heroic themes, powerful language and epic tales such as The Trojan horse and more.

This resource pack offers complete coverage of the book, with printable teaching materials to aid your planning and differentiated tasks suited to various ability levels in Year 3 and Year 4. Equipped with all the resources needed, you’ll help students expand their vocabulary, refine their grammar, and dive into the legendary adventures of these classic texts, all while addressing key components of the Literacy section of the Primary National Curriculum.

Main Focus: Front Cover Discussion

This is an in-depth analysis of the front cover of the Iliad and Odyssey book retold by Gillian Cross.

Your class will be challenged to elicit information from what they can only see on the front cover.

In this resource we are guiding your class through different points by asking questions to encourage them to research, use their knowledge and make inferences. We have also included a multiple choice resource.

Main Focus: Vocabulary - The Golden Apple

This literacy resource explores some of the interesting vocabulary used in The Golden Apple chapter at the beginning of the book.

Your LKS2 class will use the word bank to complete the sentences. They will then research a few words in the dictionary for definitions.

Main Focus: Inverted Commas - Pages 54 and 55

This activity focuses on inverted commas or speech marks and pages 54 and 55 of the Iliad and Odyssey book.

Your Year 3 / Year 4 class must either identify where the inverted commas will go in the passages or highlight the inverted commas as they read through the passages.

Main Focus: Contractions - SPIES

This printable resource focuses on contractions that have been used in the chapter SPIES.

Your class will identify the contractions used in the sentences from the story and then write the two words that makes up each contraction.

Main Focus: Tense - Aeolus and Circe

This activity focuses on verbs used in the past and present tense.

Your class will read the extracts from the chapter and pages 195 and 196, highlight the verbs (if you have chosen the first resource) and write them in the correct tense category.

We have differentiated this resource three times for your LKS2 class.

Main Focus: Character Study pages 41-44

Your class will read the chapter ‘Paris Makes an Offer and The Greeks Make a Wall’ and provide evidence for the statements regarding the characters Hector, Paris, King Priam, Ajax, Nestor and the Greeks and Trojans.

This is a character study worksheet aimed at Year 3 and Year 4 that focuses on characters within the pages 41-44. Once printed, your class must find evidence to support statements on the pages and learn more about the characters.

Main Focus: Word Class / Parts of Speech - Chapter: Patroclus in Disguise Troy

In this activity, your class will read the passages and identify the different parts of speech that have been chosen. To inform your planning, we have focused on nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs for this resource and differentiated it accordingly.

Your LKS2 class will colour code the words in the chosen sentences.

Main Focus: Non-Fiction - The Trojan Horse

This is a non-fiction comprehension resource for your LKS2 class to complete, deepening their literacy and comprehension skills.

It focuses on the events of The Trojan War and introduces the key characters involved using the information from Homer’s Iliad. It goes on to provide a little bit of information about the Trojan horse that was delivered as a ‘gift’ to provide your class with general knowledge on the subject.

Your class will read the information in the Non-Fiction text diligently and then answer the questions accurately based on the evidence they read in the passages.

Main Focus: Non-Fiction - Life in Ancient Greece

In this worksheet your class will learn a little bit about life in Ancient Greece to gain some base knowledge. This resource explores climate, professions, city states, education and more…

At the end of the resource it has three pictures with the question, ‘How do the Ancient Greeks want to be remembered?’ for your class to think about. Such a deep question which should be included in all your History planning units, but we have been left clues:

In summary, the ancient Greeks sought to be remembered through acts of heroism, intellectual achievements, leadership, cultural contributions, and athletic success. Whether through the pursuit of kleos (glory), the display of arete (excellence), or monumental achievements in art and architecture, their primary aim was to ensure that their names, deeds, and legacies would live on through the generations.

We have included a comprehension for this activity and multiple choice answers if needed.