Year 2 English Plans

The children are introduced to The Dragon Machine by Helen Ward and other well-known dragon stories, George and the Dragon by Chris Wormell, and The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch. They create a dragon and write similes to describe it. They then write dragon stories with a focus on using conjunctions to write longer sentences.

Read and compare Hansel and Gretel by Anthony Browne, and Baba Yaga and the Stolen Baby by Alison Lurie, Francis Lincoln, and Baba Yaga by Tony Bradman using drama and story maps. Discuss joining sentences using or, and or but. Children write witch stories using story pegs to plan. Introduce some 'story language' and encourage interesting endings. Hamilton Group Reader, Why Not Me?, is used to build confidence in reading aloud.

Using Fox by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks, The Tin Forest by Helen Ward and Wayne Anderson and The Whales’ Song by Dyan Sheldon and Gary Blythe, children will explore stories set in wild places. Through role-play and group discussion they will think carefully about characterisation and closely investigate how characters’ feelings influence their behaviour. They will compare and contrast stories and work collaboratively to share and justify their opinions and ideas. They will explore how authors use description to enhance the information they present to readers and will include descriptive vocabulary in their own writing. Children discover how conjunctions add additional clauses to a sentence and how varying the sentences they write makes their writing interesting to read. Children learn to sequence familiar stories and to adapt the plot of well-known stories to plan and write their own. 

Use Instructions by Neil Gaiman to introduce children to writing instructions. Explore features of instructions including bossy verbs. Identify exciting tricky words and discuss how to decode them. Children write instructions using stimulus of map of Fairy-tale Land.

This plan is a unique twist of a recount plan. Based on the lovely story Diary of a Wombat by Jackie French, children use conjunctions to expand sentences before writing their own recounts in a diary form about an English animal. Children read either The dog who wouldn't stop barking, The Owl and the moon or Chicken's bad dream (Hamilton Group Readers).

Explore the senses through poetry, The Works chosen by Paul Cookson, and Raps, Riddles and Concrete by Pie Corbett. Read a range of different poems and learn some by heart. Go on a poetry walk to the playground or nature area to collect some wonderful describing words. Write simple poems using adjectives and adjectival phrases.

This unit is based around the wonderful poem, Aliens Stole My Underpants by Brian Moses (Cat Message by Roger Stevens). Children will memorise and perform this poem, describe objects to aliens using adjectives before finally writing their own alien poems.

Using Monster Poems and Dinosaur Poems by Korky Paul and John Foster children will enjoy identifying, reading and writing questions, statements, exclamations and commands. They will understand how to combine sentences to write short poems and how to edit and improve their writing. They will use decoding strategies to read a selection of unfamiliar poetry. They share their thoughts and justify their ideas to adults and their peers. Children enjoy working collaboratively to perform poetry to an audience.