CFE Level 2 (Ages 8-11)
Darkmouth Learning
Resources
Fun, creative activities inspired
by Darkmouth, Shane Hegarty’s
award-winning debut novel.
Resources created by Scottish Book Trust
About these resources
These resources are full of cross-curricular activity suggestions to help you
explore Darkmouth with your students. Adapt and use as you see fit!
Introducing Darkmouth
Darkmouth is the first book in Shane Hegarty’s hugely popular Legends
series. The town of Darkmouth has been invaded by terrifying monsters
known as Legends and it is up to Finn to protect it. The last in a long line
of Legend hunters, Finn has a lot to live up to. Especially since his father
and trainer is also one of the greatest Legend Hunters that ever lived.
Brimming with fun illustrations by James de la Rue, Darkmouth is a
gripping adventure jam-packed with laughs, monsters and a quirky cast of
hilarious characters.
Activities
Make a Stop-Motion Animation
Eng 2-31a, Exa 2-02a, Tch 2-04a
Legends are terrifying monsters who come in all different shapes and
sizes. In this task your pupils will create their own Legend and then
animate it using simple stop-motion techniques.
Darkmouth is full of brilliant descriptions of the Legends, which are often
made up of a mixture of body parts from lots of different animals. From
Manticores, with the body of a lion, the wings of a dragon and a scorpion
tail, to Wolpertingers, a mixture of rabbit, reindeer and a sprinkling of
vampire.
To begin with ask your pupils to create their own Legend, made up of a
strange a mix of different animals. Encourage your pupils to think up the
most grotesque features they can to make their Legend extra scary. They
could draw their Legend first and then make a model out of plasticine,
clay or recycled materials.
Shane Hegarty uses lots of brilliant vocabulary to describe how the
Legends move and sound as well as how they look. Each pupil could write
a fact file for their new Legend to describe it and alert Finn to its dangers.
To help your pupils get started with describing how their Legend moves
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and sounds and to explain its terrifying features you could first come up
with ideas all together as a class. Ask pupils to think of all of the different
words they could use to describe how a creature moves and sounds, and
to look at Darkmouth for ideas. In the book you can find words like
thudded, slithered, roared, thundered and creaked and hopefully this will
inspire your pupils to come up with many more!
Legend Fact File
Name:
Height:
Weight:
Terrifying features:
How it moves:
How it sounds:
Now that your pupils have created their Legend and thought about how it
moves and sounds it is time to turn their characters into an animation.
There are lots of videos on YouTube which you can show pupils to
introduce them to stop motion animation.
This resource from iPad Art Room has a really useful explanation of how
to create simple animations using iMotion. There are lots of different apps
available to create stop-motion animations or you can just use a phone
video recorder or digital camera to capture still frames.
www.ipadartroom.com/clay-mation/
Wikihow has a simple step-by-step guide to creating clay animations:
www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Simple-Claymation-With-a-Webcam-andWindows-Movie-Maker
Once you have introduced your pupils to the idea of stop-motion
animation and had a go at creating some simple clips, split pupils into
small groups and explain that each group is going to create a short 30
second scene where their Legends meet and interact. Pupils can write a
short script or storyboard, make scenery and even add sound clips to
bring their animations to life.
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Adapt a Scene from Darkmouth Into a Comic
Lit 2-16a, Eng 2-31a, Eng 2-19a, Exa 2-02a, Exa 2-03a
Adapting a scene from a book into a comic is a great way to get pupils
thinking about the writer’s craft and to explore key themes and ideas from
the story.
The format of comics will probably already be familiar to your pupils and
some of them might already be comic book fans. Start off by bringing
different comic strips into class and giving pupils time to read them. Invite
pupils to bring in their own comics from home too.
A brilliant resource for funny and accessible child-friendly comics is the
Phoenix, a weekly comic for 6-12 year olds:
www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk/schools/
Talk to your pupils about the similarities and differences between different
comics and artist’s styles. Some ideas to discuss:
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Is there dialogue? How is it presented? Are there speech bubbles or
captions?
What are the characters doing? How is that shown?
What is the shape of the comic frames? Do they look like a box? Are
the corners rounded? Why do you think the illustrator made that
choice?
How is action, like movement, shown?
What happens from one frame to the next?
These brilliant resources from graphic novel artists Metaphrog describe
how to adapt a scene from a novel into a comic: scottishbooktrust.com/
learning/learning-resources/resource/how-to-write-a-comic-book-scene
And take a look at this blog from comic artist Adam Murphy with top tips
for your pupils on how to draw comics: scottishbooktrust.com/blog/
teachers-librarians/2016/08/comics-and-literacy-part-4-how-to-draw-acomic
Pupils can choose a scene from Darkmouth and then follow the activities
in these resources to create their own comic strip.
If your pupils are less confident you can provide them with a simple layout
sheet for their comic to help them get started. You can find lots of different
printable layouts here: www.printablepaper.net/category/comics
Persuasive Writing Task: The Darkmouth Tourist Board
Eng 2-27a, Exa 2-03a
Darkmouth doesn’t get very many visitors and when it does they tend to
leave again very quickly. In this task your pupils will create a tourism
campaign for Darkmouth, encouraging people to come for a holiday.
Split your pupils into groups and tell them that the Darkmouth tourist
board has decided to start running Legend safaris to encourage more
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people to visit the area and that they are in charge of creating a poster
and advertising to advertise the safari.
First ask your pupils to research online how different tourist boards
advertise their city or country. Ask them to think about what kind of
language advertisements use and to write down a list of the persuasive
words they come across in their research.
Now it is time for your pupils to create a poster. This should include:
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Eye-catching images and illustrations
Writing which describes the safari and encourages people to book a
trip.
Booking information – contact telephone number, company name etc
Some things for your pupils to think about while they are making their
poster:
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Who is the poster aimed at? For example, is it families, adventurers,
honeymoon couples or school trips?
What persuasive words can they use to encourage people to take
part?
Can they offer a special discount or deal to get people to book?
What are the unique features of this safari which might entice people
to book?
Once your pupils have created their posters they can present their ideas to
the rest of the class. You could also invite another teacher to be a
representative from the Darkmouth Toursim board and pick a winning
advertising campaign.
Reading Recommendations
Lit 2-11a
If you and your class loved Darkmouth, you might like to take a look at
these book lists for some ideas for further reading:
10 Great Adventures: scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/10-greatadventures-8-11
8 Hilarious Reads (8 – 11): scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/8hilarious-reads-8-1
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