Writing

Term 4 - A wishing tale

To start the new term, we will be looking at the book "The Magic Paintbrush", by Julia Donaldson. 

We will start by learning the story using story mapping in the style of Talk for Writing. Then we will look more in depth at the language and structure of the story, before finally using the structure to help us write our own wishing tale. 

Term 3 - "Is our climate cool?"

This term as part of our geography topic, the children have been learning about rainforests and why they are so important. The Great Kapok Tree is a fantastic book that is full of wonderful vocabulary and illustrations, but also gives a powerful message to the reader.

We have used story mapping to help us to learn the story, so that we are able to innovate to create our own ideas. 

We have been rewriting our own version of the story that includes different animals in a different setting. 

Term 2 - "What was new about the Stone Age?"

This term, we have been looking at "Stone Age Boy" by Satoshi Kitamura so inspire our writing. We have used story mapping and hot seating to learn the story, before using elements of the tale to help teach specific skills. 

Handwriting

We teach the children to use continuous cursive handwriting. 

This is beneficial to them as it helps build the speed of their writing as they move through the school and has been proven to improve spelling as the brain remembers the shape of the word to improve recall. 

When children have mastered this style of handwriting, they will be eligible to earn a black ink pen to write with from year 3. 

Term 1 - Where in the world are we?

To link with our geography and science topics this term, we have chosen to base our writing around the book "A world full of animal stories - 50 folktales and legends" by Angela McAllister. 

We have looked at the difference between a folktale and a legend and are starting to identify common themes in the tales, despite them originating from all around the world.