When the Sky Falls

When the Sky Falls by Phil Earle

The story is set in London during World War II. A boy named Joseph is sent to live with a grumpy woman called Mrs F, while his father is away fighting in the war. Joseph feels unwanted, angry, and lonely.
Mrs F looks after a run-down zoo, and she asks Joseph to help her take care of the animals. One of the most important animals there is Adonis, a huge silverback gorilla. At first, Joseph is frightened of him, but over time he realises Adonis is gentle, powerful, and trapped—just like Joseph feels.
As the bombs fall on the city, Joseph learns about bravery, kindness, and sacrifice. He discovers that family isn’t always the people you’re born with, but the ones who care for you when you need it most.

Main Focus: Cover Analysis

This is an introductory resource for the teacher to promote some discussions around the front cover of the book.

We have included some questions you could ask your class and some statements you can write on the board to promote some thinking and predictions.

Main Focus: Spelling - Chapter 1

This resource is linked to chapter 1 of the book and focuses on spelling. Your class will be challenged to read the sentences and identify the spelling mistakes.

Once underlined, ask your children to write the correct spellings.

Main Focus: Literary Devices - Chapters 1-4

For this activity, we have decided to focus on literary devices used by the author Phil Earle in the first four chapters of ‘When the Sky Falls’

Your KS2 class will need to identify Similes, Metaphors, Personification, Hyperboles and Rhetorical Questions from the given examples so prior knowledge is essential.

Ensure you include Literary Devices in your planning for this term once completed.

Main Focus: Character Study - Chapter 5

This resource focuses on the personalities of both Joseph and Mrs F is the form of a character study activity.

Your Year 5 / Year 6 class will answer the questions and reflect on what can be inferred by what is said and their interactions.

We see in this chapter that both characters have the same whit and sarcasm and both like to get the last word in. That’s possibility why Gran has sent Joseph to Mrs F, because she knows he will have met his match.

Once key difference is that Mrs F is controlled and calculated, but Joseph is emotional and irrational – it is important to discuss this with your class.

Main Focus: Punctuation Errors Chapters 6-7

This punctuation resource takes a range of sentences from the book and your class are challenged to decide whether or not punctuation is missing, has been used incorrectly or there are no errors at all.

Your kids will choose A, B, C, D or N (no mistake) for their answers.

This is a lovely activity to encourage children to proof-read, thinking about all forms of punctuation, including: speech marks, commas, capital letters, apostrophes, question and quotation marks etc.

Main Focus: Comprehension Chapters 8-11

This comprehension focuses on Chapters 8 to 11 and asks a range of questions.

Your class must carefully read the chapters and use the information to answer accurately.

We have included free response questions and also a multiple choice question set too.

Main Focus: Vocabulary Extension

We have taken a range of vocabulary form chapters 11-14 for this teaching resource to help your children in their understanding of new vocabulary.

Your KS2 class will read each sentence carefully and decide which definition is most accurate.

Main Focus: Sequencing Events - Chapters 15 and 16

I really enjoyed these two chapters of the book – very contrasting …

Chapter 15 focuses specifically on the chaos in the classroom, with Joseph firing all the tables and chairs around the class.

Chapter 16 focuses on the walk home from school to the zoo with Syd and results in Joseph opening up about his difficulty with reading.

Your class must read the events from the two chapters and place them in chronological order.

We have also included the answer sheet.

Main Focus: Chapter 17 - Word Class

We have taken an extract from the book and your class must try to distinguish which class of words they are.

It would be useful before starting to go over: nouns, verbs, adjective, prepositions and adverbs.

Main Focus: Identifying Potential Contractions - Chapter 18

This teaching resource is linked to Chapter 18 of When the Sky Falls and focuses on contractions, developing editing and punctuation skills.

Your KS2 class will read through the passage and replace two words with a contraction as often as possible.

Main Focus: Suffixes - Chapters 19-21

In this resource we have spelt a range of words incorrectly by modifying their suffixes.

Generally we have included -tion, -cion, -sion words but have also included other suffixes that are commonly misspelt, that can include double letters etc.