The Spy Goldfish

Year 3

The Spy Goldfish is a free, NAPLAN-aligned writing resource for Year 3 students. It includes a story starter, complication, tiered vocabulary and scaffolds mapped to the Australian Curriculum (AC9).

Year 3 AC9E3LE05 AC9E3LA06 AC9E3LA10 AC9E3LA11 AC9E3LA04 AC9E3LY06

Supports the Year 3 achievement standard (creating written texts).

Australian Curriculum content descriptions © ACARA. Writesy is not affiliated with or endorsed by ACARA.

Max always thought his goldfish, Bubbles, was a little strange. Today he knelt down to feed Bubbles. Something happened and it made his jaw drop. Bubbles swam around the tank. He had tiny spy goggles on. He blew bubbles. The bubbles formed secret messages. Max could not believe his eyes. What kind of fish could do something like this?

The complication

  • Bubbles writes a message that warns of danger, but Max cannot read the whole message because the bubbles pop too quickly.
  • A neighbour sees Bubbles with spy goggles and wants to take the fish to study it, so Max must decide whether to hide Bubbles or protect him.
  • The goggles fall off and reveal a tiny camera. Max must find out who put it on Bubbles and why.

Sentence starters

  1. Max lifted the lid and reached for the pellet while Bubbles circled and put on his tiny spy goggles. (action opener)
  2. After the bubbles spelled out one short word, Max pressed his face closer to the glass and held his breath. (connective opener)

…and 1 more with your free account.

What's in the full resource

  • Complications
  • Brainstorming Prompts
  • Vocabulary Support
  • Sentence Starters
  • Dialogue Prompts
  • Writing Challenges
  • Sentence Variety
  • Creative Twists
  • Writing Checklist
  • Reflective Questions
  • Collaborative Writing Ideas
  • Printable teacher and student PDFs

NAPLAN writing criteria this resource targets

Audience Text structure Ideas Character and setting Vocabulary Cohesion Paragraphing Sentence structure Punctuation Spelling

See how Writesy aligns to the NAPLAN writing criteria.

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