Real Writing Year 1 - Unit 18
Model text: Jungle Adventure, by Dan Smith
Curriculum links: Geography (continents)
Unit overview
This writing unit for Year 1 is built around an original text by Dan Smith - a portal story. 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 will begin to learn the features of a simple portal story, also known as a home-away-home story and will explore the world the character enters using the magical object. They will write their own version of the story, writing in the first person, changing the place that the character visits. This unit could be used to develop pupils’ familiarity with key story types or within a topic studying continents or a particular place in geography, looking at the physical and human features of places.
Key curriculum skills
Three fully-resourced lessons are included for the following Year 1 English objectives, which can form part of the unit or be taught discretely:
1. Vocabulary: To spell words ending in the suffix -ed (where no change is needed to the root word)
Pupils will: learn how the suffix -ed can be added to verbs.
2. Grammar: To sequence sentences to form short narratives
Pupils will: use story cards and language to orally sequence and retell the story Jungle Adventure. They will use a story board to draw pictures that will help them to retell the tale, using simple adverbials to sequence the events.
3. Punctuation: To use a capital letter for people and places
Pupils will: learn that capital letters are needed for the names of people and places (proper nouns). They will write a short letter to Marco, from the story ‘Jungle Adventure’ by Dan Smith, telling him about where they live using capital letters for proper nouns.
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Additional teaching points to teach or revisit:
- saying out loud what they are going to write about
- using capital letters and full stops to punctuate sentences
- leaving spaces between words
- using adjectives to describe
- reading aloud their own writing
Year 1 words: featured vocabulary
Common exception words: said I we here says there was one school the my to me are is by of here you come go ask so
Tier 2 words: adventure, torch
Tier 3 words: country, jaguar, mountains, Peru, rainforest, river, village