Spelling Seeds have been designed to complement Writing Roots by providing weekly, contextualised sequences of sessions for the teaching of spelling that include open-ended investigations and opportunities to practise and apply within meaningful and purposeful contexts, linked (where relevant) to other areas of the curriculum and a suggestion of how to extend the investigation into home learning.

The Lion and the Unicorn tells the story of Lenny Levi, a young boy who is evacuated during the second world war. Lenny is frightened of so many things - of the falling bombs, of being parted from his mother, of the shadows in the night. He is an outsider because he is the only boy in his foster home in the country, because he is Jewish and doesnot eat bacon or attend morning prayers at school, and because he is from London. Furthermore, Lenny wets the bed and one of his fellow evacuees tells everybody at school. Poor Lenny can only find comfort in the badge that his father gave him of a lion and a unicorn, and from being in the secret garden of his new home. It is in this garden that Lenny meets someone who shows him that unicorns are as courageous as lions, and that Lenny is full of courage too. The courage to deal with every challenge that comes his way, even though it is sometimes the hardest and most painful thing to do. Make a collection of words that could be used to describe the lion and the unicorn. Use a thesaurus to find appropriate synonyms. Alfie starred in many subsequent stories, along with his little sister Annie Rose, including An Evening at Alfie’s, Alfie Gives a Hand and Alfie Wins a Prize. Their simple childhood adventures, set in a British urban world of birthday parties, park visits and local fairs, were fittingly modernised over the years and continued to delight generations of children and their parents, with the most recent book in the series, Alfie on Holiday, published in 2019. She could create a sense of drama out of the smallest thing and resolve it without ever needing to deliver a message. Instead, she relied on children and their parents being largely sensible and so able to solve problems for themselves.

She then studied at the Ruskin in Oxford. According to her autobiography, A Life Drawing (2002), her application to Oxford was based on the misinformation that the city had an ice rink and she “rather fancied myself on ice”. At Ruskin, she studied life drawing, laying the foundation for so much of her later illustrations.

There is a Spelling Seed session for every week of the associated Writing Root. Coverage: Word List Words I think Lenny’s dad sent the letters in batches because if Lenny just got one letter at a time he would feel more sad about the war.

Look at famous paintings of fires in London, for example, The Great Fire of London (Unknown artist 1675) or A House Collapsing on Two Firemen by Leonard Rosoman. Have a go at your own fire painting. I think the place is London and I think the image is from World War Two (WWⅡ). I think the place is London because the rhyme said “London’s burning”. I think think the image is from World War Two (WWⅡ) because image had a lot of fire in it and that the rhyme said that there were enemy planes flying over London. Much later, she wrote fiction: The Lion and the Unicorn (2000), a short novel with many illustrations for six- to eight-year-olds, and two wartime adventures, Hero on a Bicycle (2012) and Whistling in the Dark (2016). In 2012 she published Dixie O’Day: In The Fast Lane!, the first in an illustrated series created jointly with her daughter, Clara Vulliamy. For her last book, written at the age of 92, she returned to the story of the lost toy dog with a seasonal sequel, Dogger’s Christmas, published in 2020.

Lenny felt numb” means that he could not feel anything. I think he felt that way because he thought that Joyce made Winnie cry.Shirley was just the person that those who loved her illustrations would expect her to be. Usually in a hat, she was effortlessly elegant and graceful, and wonderful company: funny, insightful and kind with a laugh that was both loud and heartfelt. Make a collection of books about World War II, for example, When Hitler stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr and War Boy by Michael Foreman.