A story using graphemes to help develop literacy, communication, creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking skills.

Grapheme focus

Bird /ur/ir/

Unicorn /yoo/

Tiger /igh/i/

He /ee/e/

Home /oa/oe/

Pie /igh/ie/

Paper /ai/a/

Grapheme focus

Time /igh/ie/

These /ee/e-e/

Claw /or/aw

Shield /ee/ie/

Go /oa/o/

Shake /ai/ae/

Chew/ new /oo/yoo/ew/

Cute/rude /oo/yoo/ue/

Blue/Rescue oo/yoo/

Once upon a time there was a blue bird, a cute unicorn, and a rude tiger. They all lived in a big forest. The forest had many trees, bushes, and lots of grass. The air was fresh; the sky was blue. The cute unicorn lived one side of the forest and the rude tiger lived on the other side of the forest. The blue bird would fly from one side of the forest to another.

Each day, when the blue bird would meet the cute unicorn, he would always say hello. The cute unicorn was always polite and say hello back. They would talk about what was happening in the forest. The blue bird would always tell the cute unicorn where to go to get food and water. The forest was always changing as it moved from summer to autumn to winter to spring.

 In summer when it was hot, it would be difficult to find water. The blue bird could see from the sky where the water was in ponds and lakes. He could see how close they were to where the cute unicorn lived. The blue bird could give easy directions to get to the water.

 In winter when it was cold, it would be difficult to find food. The blue bird was only small but could sometimes bring food in her mouth to feed the cute unicorn. The blue bird would always say, “Why don’t you try these?” The cute unicorn would try to eat the berries but sometimes it gave her tummy ache. To not make the blue bird sad, the unicorn would say, “I will eat these later.”

In spring when it was warm; the blue bird would find the best flowers for the cute unicorn. The cute unicorn loved to make daisy chains. She taught blue bird how to make them too. The cute unicorn knew which flowers to eat and which ones not to eat. Spring was her favourite season as everything was bright and colourful. The cute unicorn would make a new home. She was always happy in spring. The cute unicorn was always grateful for the help he would receive.

The blue bird would fly over part of the forest where the rude tiger lived. When he saw the rude tiger, he would always say hello. The rude tiger would never say hello back. He would just grunt and scowl. The rude tiger would mutter words under his breath. The blue bird would just shake his head.

In summer when it was hot, the rude tiger would become very thirsty, but he would not listen to the blue bird about where water could be found. The blue bird would try to fly into grey clouds to try to make rain so the rude tiger would drink the rainwater. The rude tiger did not know the blue bird was trying to help him.

In autumn when it was cool, the blue bird would let the rude tiger know where he could collect things to build a winter home. The blue bird was worried that the tiger would catch a cold in winter and would have no home. The rude tiger did not seem to care.

In winter when it was cold, the blue bird would spot food for the rude tiger, but the rude tiger did not want to know. The blue bird would try to take food to the rude tiger and leave it outside his front door. The blue bird did not want the tiger to go hungry. The rude tiger would wake up and spot the food and just eat it. “Yummy,” he would say. But he never thought about where the food had come from.

In spring when it was warm and time to build a new home, the blue bird could find the best places to live, but the rude tiger put his hands over his ears to he could not hear. The rude tiger disliked this season because his winter home was no longer useable and he had to find a new home. He was always sad in spring.

The blue bird did not know what to do. He thought it would be a clever idea to bring the cute unicorn and rude tiger together. They could be friends.

The sky turned black and the rain poured and poured. Everything was wet, cold, and smelt musty. The blue bird could not fly from one side of the forest to the other. The cute unicorn could not move because of all the mud. The rude tiger could not leave his home as he did not want his fur to get wet. The forest became silent.

The sun came out and a helicopter flew over the forest. It was dropping things into the sky. It was helping people at the nearby village. Some off the papers that came from the helicopter dropped on the forest floor. The cute unicorn could not read and did not know what it all meant. The blue bird could not read and could only collect the papers in his beak. The rude tiger lived too far away to know any of this was going on.