Instruction Texts and Forest Layers

Year One

In Year One, the children have been exploring the features of instruction texts. They created actions to help them remember each of the features.

Title

Introduction

What you need

Method

Top Tip

Year Two

As part of their Rainforest theme, Year Two have written poems inspired by the rainforest.

Success Criteria

I can see beautiful blossoms.
I can see spiky thorns.
I can see a tree as big as a plane.
I can see brown bark on the tree.
I can hear birds singing.
I can feel melting branches.
I can smell fire.
Someone is trying to burn the rainforest down.
Preston 2F

The forest floor is very quiet.
A long poison snake slithers in the leaves
A colourful monkey spying on the snake’s delicious food.
Alfie 2F

Meanwhile, in geography, Year Two have been getting creative outdoors by using natural resources to produce a representation of the layers in the rainforest. They had to use their reasoning skills to explain to their peers why they chose a certain leaf or stick for their picture.

“I chose this leaf for the understorey because it is big enough to catch water and sunlight from the canopy and emergent layer.”
 Jack

“I found a furry feather. I am going to use it to represent the birds in the rainforest.”
Massimo

“I need something for the tree trunk otherwise the leaves have nothing to grow off of.”
Krish

“I used scrunched up dead leaves for moss because hardly any light gets to the forest floor. That means the plants can’t grow that big.”
Alfie

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Experiements and Adventures

Year 1

In preparation for writing our narrative The Magic Bed we looked at different locations. We chose one that we wanted our main character to go to in the build up of our story and described it. 

"In New York city you can hear cars beeping their horns." 


"You can smell burgers with onions and tomatoes. There is a hot dog stand with delicious hotdogs." 


"The screeching seagulls are swooping across the city."

-Hannah 1D

We then mapped out the 5 main parts onto a story mountain.

Luca 1A

Georgina 1A

Year 2

2F have began to plan and write their own rainforest  inspired narratives this week. Here is the class working in groups to mind map ideas for a new character.

Our science topic is 'Plants'. 2S have planted a sunflower seed and are ensuring it has all the conditions it needs to grow. They are record their findings in a Sunflower diary.

They have also carried out a experiment- 5 seeds have had particular condition withdrawn and observing what happens over the next couple of weeks.
Seed 1- planted in sand
Seed 2- no sunlight
Seed 3- planted in damp paper
Seed 4- no water
Seed 5- in an empty pot

Alexis

Nisa

2D went outside to build animal shelters as part of their future lab. Once they had returned from their adventure they wrote some instructions.

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Reading and writing out and about

Year 1
It is week 1 of our narrative unit and we have been reading The Magic Bed by John Burningham. It's about a little boy called Georgie who needs a new bed and the one he finds can take him on magical adventures.
We created our own story mountains using rope then ordering pictures from the story onto it. We had to decide which picture depicted the opening, build up, problem, resolution and ending.

Children in 1A

Children in 1M

The classes have really enjoyed the story. Here are some comments about the book by 1D.

"She didn't like the bed because it is old and it looks scruffy." Julia


"I would call it 'Georgie's amazing adventure' because he had a really amazing adventure" Frazer


"The bed is an antique, that means it's extremely old" Marie-Ann


"If I had a magic bed I would go to Australia because it is hot there and I could go to the beach." Jessica

Below is a picture of children in 1M mapping out the 5 main parts of the narrative onto a story mountain.


Year 2

This week 2F have been using the outdoor learning areas for literacy and drama lessons. After reading the book The Greedy Rainbow by Susan Chandler and Sanja Rescek they were able to retell the story in small groups to their peers.

Their focus was on using movement, expression and gesture to carefully explain the book and create interest for the audience watching the retell.

Children in 2F

In their theme, 2S have been finding out about the Rainforest as a 'habitat'.
The Rainforest is overwhelmed by a wide variety of animals and insects living over the 4 layers.
The children have written a poem titled "Who Lives In The Rainforest?" 
We focused on verbs and adverbs.

 Ethan 2S

Oliver 2S

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