The Goblin Who Stole Homework

Year 4 · Fantasy

The Goblin Who Stole Homework is a free, NAPLAN-aligned fantasy writing resource for Year 4 students. It includes a story starter, complication, tiered vocabulary and scaffolds mapped to the Australian Curriculum (AC9).

Year 4 AC9E4LE05 AC9E4LA06 AC9E4LA04 AC9E4LA12 AC9E4LA11 AC9E4LY06

Supports the Year 4 achievement standard (creating written texts).

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

Max was sure he had finished his homework. All the math problems and every sentence in his reading assignment. However, every morning, without fail, it would mysteriously disappear. He searched high and low for his missing work but it was nowhere to be found. One day, after finishing another crumpled sheet of math problems, Max caught a tiny movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned just in time to see a small goblin. The goblin wore ragged clothes and carried a sack, and it was sneaking through a crack in his bedroom wall with his homework stuffed inside.

The complication

  1. The goblin realises Max is watching and runs, leaving a trail of homework pages leading into a hidden tunnel inside the wall. Max must decide whether to follow and risk getting trapped.
  2. The sack begins to glow and the homework pages turn into tiny creatures that scatter around the house, making mischief and hiding clues that Max must collect before bedtime.
  3. Max catches the goblin but discovers it stole the homework for a reason: a solemn goblin exam requires human schoolwork, and now the goblin’s elder demands more or else the goblin will return each night.

Sentence starters

  1. Suddenly, Max lunged toward the crack in the wall and the goblin nearly slipped away.
  2. The room smelt of dust and old paper as moonlight shaded the torn edges of the homework.

…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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