A 30-minute writing task for your YEAR 4 child - The Hand!

🌫️ Week Ten Writing Challenge! 🌫️


This week, we’re looking at something wonderfully atmospheric…
Mist! 💭

Everywhere I walk at the moment, the world feels wrapped in mist.
Streetlamps glow like blurred yellow moons, hedges fade away into grey, and footsteps sound softer, as if the world is holding its breath.

Mist is perfect for story writing — it can create mystery, tension, and quiet magic.

👉 A path that disappears into mist…
👉 A whisper of something moving that you can’t quite see…
👉 A shape emerging slowly as if stepping out of a dream…

Mist can hide secrets or reveal them — just when your reader leans in a little closer.

🕯️ This week’s theme: Mist

Your Year 4 child will explore how using a setting (rather than a character) can affect atmosphere and emotion in their writing.

They’ll focus on describing:

• what the mist looks like,
• how it moves,
• and how it makes the character feel.

Below you’ll find:
✅ A short reading prompt
✅ A writing toolkit for describing mist
✅ A 30-minute creative task to try at home

📝 Try this at home (about 30 minutes)

Reading Prompt:

Mist curled across the field like a silver ribbon.
Something shifted within it — a silhouette, tall and still.
Then the wind changed, and the shape disappeared.

Task:
Write a short story inspired by this moment.
Who — or what — was in the mist?
Is it friendly? Magical? A message from somewhere unknown?

💡 Tip:
End your story before the mysterious figure is revealed.
Leave your reader wondering — it’s more powerful than explaining everything!

🪶 Writing Toolkit: Mist

Adjectives:
hazy, silver, drifting, eerie, whispering, swirling, damp, smoky, shimmering, secretive, silent

Verbs:
crept, hovered, wrapped, curled, drifted, swirled, hid, blurred, floated, thickened, dissolved

Similes:
as soft as breath, like a blanket around the world,
thin as spider silk, swirling like stirred milk,
quiet as falling snow

Onomatopoeia:
hush, swoosh, whisper, whoosh

Personification:
the mist wrapped its arms around the trees;
the mist tiptoed across the grass;
the mist swallowed the path;
the mist whispered secrets into the dark

Metaphors:
a moving cloud, a blanket of silence,
a ghostly curtain, a doorway to somewhere else,
a breath from another world

Example Sentences:

✨ Mysterious:
Mist crept along the path, hiding the world one step at a time.

🌙 Atmospheric:
The mist wrapped itself around the trees, whispering secrets only the wind could hear.

💫 Magical:
Silver mist hovered above the grass, sparkling like someone had sprinkled stars across it.

🌫️ Suspenseful:
Something shifted inside the mist — a shape, a shadow, or maybe just my imagination.

💡 Parent Tip

Encourage your child to slow down and describe the atmosphere, not the plot.

Ask things like:
➡️ What can the character see — or not see?
➡️ How does the mist move?
➡️ What emotion does the mist create — excitement, curiosity, or nervousness?

Remind them:
Writing isn’t about being scary — it’s about making the reader feel something.

Happy Writing, everyone! ✍️✨

Anna Donovan
Qualified Teacher (QTS 2005)
Specialist 11+ Exam Essay & Creative Writing Tutor