Help students explore the power of figurative language through this engaging five-day text exploration pack built around the original mentor text, The Kite.

Designed for Years 5–6, this pack focuses on how authors use similes to create vivid imagery, communicate emotions, and strengthen themes. Through Isla's experience flying a kite on a windy beach, students discover how carefully chosen comparisons can help readers visualise action, understand character experiences, and connect with deeper messages about perseverance and resilience.

Across five structured lessons, students revisit the text multiple times, building their understanding of vocabulary, similes, inference, author's purpose, themes, and evidence-based responses. Students are encouraged to explore how the kite may represent more than just an object and how the author's language choices help communicate determination and growth.

This pack includes:

• Original mentor text
• Five days of structured learning
• Explicit WALTs and success criteria
• Vocabulary and figurative language investigations
• Simile analysis activities
• Inference and interpretation tasks
• Theme and author's purpose exploration
• Evidence-based response scaffold
• Student self-reflection pages
• Comprehensive teacher guide with answers and alternative interpretations

 

Perfect for:

• Whole-class reading
• Guided reading follow-up
• Literacy rotations
• Independent literacy tasks
• Figurative language instruction
• Explicit comprehension teaching

Students will learn how similes help authors create strong visual images, communicate feelings, and reinforce themes. By the end of the week, students will be able to identify similes, explain their purpose, and discuss how they contribute to meaning within a text.

Curriculum Focus: Figurative Language, Reading Comprehension, Author Craft, Inference, Themes, Visualisation, Evidence-Based Responses

Year Level: Years 5–6

Lesson Length: 15–20 minutes per lesson

Pack Focus: Figurative Language

Week Focus: Similes

Theme: Perseverance

Key Learning: Students explore how authors use similes to create imagery and communicate ideas about determination, resilience, and continuing through challenges, even when things do not go to plan.