The Full Stop That Got Away

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Frank is a full stop. He’s round and small and things quietly stop when he’s around. He splits up sentences that get too long… He never shouts… And he never asks questions. But what if Frank decides to stop acting like a full stop? What would happen then?

English:

What is a full stop? What does it do? Make a poster to teach people about full stops, question marks and other types of punctuation.
Make some sentences with missing punctuation and challenge a friend to put punctuation in the correct places.
Make a new story about a different type of punctuation, e.g. Ellie the Exclamation Mark or Quentin the Question Mark.
Retell the story in the first person, from Frank’s point of view.
Think of some speech / thought bubbles to accompany the illustrations. What might Frank be saying or thinking?
Find some of Frank’s speech in the story and rewrite it as direct speech and reported (indirect) speech.
Dee isn’t impressed by Frank’s original story about her. Can you finish the story?
The dragons use exclamation marks, question marks and ellipses to end their sentences. What effect do these have on the story?
Write a sequel to this story, in which Frank has to stop something that has gone wrong.
Go on a punctuation hunt around your room. What examples can you find? If you change some punctuation, how does it affect the meaning?
Write a letter from Frank explaining why he went away.
What does personification mean? How has the author used personification in this story? Could you use it in a story of your own?

Maths:

Plan a party for the dragons. What will they need? Calculate the cost of each item and the total cost for four (or more) dragons.
Create some repeating pattern using different types of punctuation, e.g. ? ! ? ! ? !
Make some symmetrical patterns using punctuation marks.
Conduct a survey to ask your friends about their favourite type of punctuation mark.

Science:

Make a fictional food chain that includes a dragon.

Computing:

Use graphics software to create some illustrations of dragons.
Use publishing tools to make posters to teach people about different types of punctuation.
Make a narrated version of this story. Could you add music, sound effects, animations and transitions? Here is an example:

Design Technology:

Could you make a model of Frank the full stop (or other types of punctuation)?

Art:

Design some other punctuation characters.
Draw some punctuation using only lines and shapes made with punctuation marks.
Look at examples of pointillism and other art based on dots (e.g. work by Yayoi Kusama). Could you create similar examples?

Music:

Make up some songs to teach people about punctuation and when to use them.

Languages:

Can you find out the names of different types of punctuation in other languages?

PSHE:

How does Frank help the dragons in this story? Think of a time when you helped your friends.