Digging Deeper - Practising in Sentences

Writing a single word is often easier than writing it within a sentence. Please feel free to make up sentences for your child's spelling sets. Use spellings from across sets already learnt. 

The sets below are very short sentences, most of which use each spelling in the set. They also try only to use phonic knowledge that is familiar already. Please be aware that they are not meant to illustrate excellent sentences, but are  intended for efficient practise of each set within a sentence. Please acknowledge when they are a little daft.

Do improve by using words that your child already knows. Giving them repeated experience of being able to correctly tackle each word will help them to trust that they can keep drawing on the phonics already known when writing in sentences. 

Please ensure that your child is using a capital letter when needed (such as at the start of the sentence and with words like 'Mrs'). There is a useful formation guide at the bottom of the page. Please do not expect your child to use every punctuation mark accurately at this stage, but do expect them to use capital letters, exclamation marks and question marks correctly every time.

Supporting Learners

It may be that your child has specific needs and writing these sentences will put unnecessary strain on their time practising. If this is the case, please reduce the load by saying the word, saying it within a sentence that would interest your child and then say the word again. Your child will keep hearing great quality, full sentences and then write the word. Encourage them to read the words back to you and to say them in sentences. 

Set 52: huge, tiny, rainy, clean, soft

1. The huge elephant looked tiny in the rainy distance. Its soft, clean skin glistened in the sunlight.
2. On a rainy day, the huge puddle made the tiny, clean pebbles look soft and shiny.
3. The huge, soft teddy bear stayed clean and dry whilst the tiny mouse got soaked in the rainy weather.

Set 53: dirty, dry, brave, neat, shiny

1. The brave explorer kept his neat, shiny boots clean despite the dirty, dry desert sand.
2. After the dirty work, the brave children made everything neat, dry and shiny again.
3. The brave firefighter's neat uniform became dirty and dry. His shoes were not shiny at all.

Set 54: hard, smooth, sticky, fluffy, smile

1. The smooth, fluffy cake was hard to cut, but the sticky icing made everyone smile.
2. It was hard to make the icing smooth as it was so sticky and fluffy. It was also hard to smile!
3. It's hard to smile when sticky toffee gets stuck on smooth or  fluffy cushions.

Set 55: calm, icy, chilly, cosy, frosty

1. The calm, icy lake looked beautiful on the chilly, frosty morning. We stayed cosy indoors.
2. Even though the weather was icy and chilly, we felt calm and cosy inside away from the frosty day.  
3. The calm morning was icy, chilly and frosty, but the cosy fire kept us warm.

Set 56: rough, bravely, proud, broken, dull

1. In the dull, grey weather, the proud dog bravely crossed the rough, broken path.
2. She bravely climbed the rough, broken wall, feeling proud. It was not dull.
3. The proud team bravely fixed the rough, broken fence with dull, old tools.

Set 57: grumpy, empty, stale, sharp, prickly

1. The grumpy hedgehog with sharp, prickly spines found only stale food in the empty bowl.
2. The empty cupboard made him grumpy because the stale cheese was sharp and prickly with mould.
3. Sharp, prickly thorns made the grumpy gardener cross as he worked in the nearly empty garden.

Set 58: gasp, frown, croak, speed, rapidly

1. I gasp and frown as the frog starts to croak. Then it hops away at speed, moving rapidly.
2. The children gasp and frown when they hear the toad croak and rapidly increase its speed.
3. You might gasp or frown when you hear a croak and the frog rapidly gains speed through the water.

Set 59: dashed, towards, pointed, rounded, curved

1. The fox dashed towards the pointed rocks, rounded the corner and then ran around the curved path.
2. She dashed towards the rounded, pointed tower, following the curved road through the village.
3. The rabbit dashed towards the rounded burrow entrance with its ears pointed. It dashed into the curved door.

Set 60: creep, silent, crawl, whisper, crackle

1. Silent cats creep and crawl forwards. They whisper as twigs crackle under their paws.
2. We creep in silent steps and crawl carefully as leaves whisper and crackle underfoot.
3. The silent mouse will creep and crawl slowly as dry leaves whisper and crackle nearby.

Set 61: gruff, stripy, smoothly, leapt, crawled

1. The gruff, stripy tiger leapt smoothly over the log where the snake had crawled earlier.
2. A gruff voice spoke as the stripy cat leapt smoothly down and crawled under the fence.
3. The stripy badger with its gruff nature crawled slowly and leapt smoothly into the hole.

Set 62: chattering, buzzing, sparkling, jewel, grasp

1. The chattering, buzzing bees flew around sparkling flowers, trying to grasp the jewel-like dewdrops.
2. Chattering birds and buzzing insects filled the sparkling garden where jewel-bright butterflies were hard to grasp.
3. The sparkling, jewel-like dragonfly was buzzing and chattering whilst trying to grasp the tiny leaf.