Year 3 Model Text Resource Pack 17: ‘Cave Challenge’ (Narrative; History - Stone Age to Iron Age)

Real Writing Year 3 - Unit 17
Cave Challenge, by Jo Franklin
Curriculum links: History (Stone Age to Iron Age)

Unit overview
This writing unit for Year 3 is built around an original model text by Jo Franklin - a narrative set in the paleolithic period. The example text is available as a PDF in three versions (plain, illustrated and annotated); annotated and non-annotated PowerPoint presentations are also included.

In this two-week unit, pupils have an opportunity to learn some vocabulary connected with Palaeolithic cave painting and will investigate how the author has used noun phrases to add description. Pupils will also explore the suffixes -er and -or. It will culminate in them writing their own story based on a cave painting theme.

Key curriculum skills
Two fully-resourced lesson plans are included for Year 3 English objectives:

1. Vocabulary -To use further suffixes: -er and -or
Pupils will: revisit suffixes; look at two ways of adding suffixes making the ‘ur’ sound - ‘-er’ and ‘or’ and understand when each is used; learn the spelling patterns associated with these suffixes; add -er or -or to words; write a paragraph using the suffixes -er and -or.

2. Grammar: To use expanded noun phrases to add description
Pupils will: revisit word classes; understand how nouns can be expanded into noun phrases, especially by adding adjectives, lists of adjectives and further detail; expand nouns into noun phrases; write a paragraph using noun phrases.

Revisited skills

• the use of progressive verb forms
• commas for lists, including lists of adjectives
• apostrophes to show contraction

Additional year 3 curriculum teaching points

• extending sentences with a wider range of conjunctions
• the use of conjunctions, adverbials and prepositions to express time and cause
• the use of paragraphs organised around a theme, scene or period of time
• using inverted commas to punctuate direct speech
• the development of characters, setting and plot

Year 3 words: featured vocabulary
Tier two words: ancestor, pouch
Tier three words: aurochs, stag, cave dwellers, hunters, gatherers
Year 3 spellings: appear, although, circle, complete, heard, learn, ordinary, special, though