English Year 1 Autumn Familiar Settings

Texts
Five Minutes' Peace by Jill Murphy

Day 1 Teaching
Introduce Five Minutes’ Peace: look at the title, author and blurb. Read the story and identify the key characters – make a list emphasising capital letters for names. Ask children to imagine a story about their family and to identify who the main characters would be.
Activity
Children draw and label their family, using capital letters for names. More able children write a sentence about something they like to do as a family.

Day 2 Teaching
Reread Five Minutes’ Peace and consider why it is so-called. Highlight the various ways in which the children stop Mrs Large having her five minutes of peace. Encourage children to relate the story to their own experiences.
Activity
Children discuss and sequence the story using given illustrations from the book. They outline verbally the key problems for Mrs Large. More able children additionally write a descriptive sentence for one or more of the illustrations.

Day 3 Teaching
Reread Five Minutes’ Peace and consider how to retell the story. Note that a story map helps us to recall the key events - draw one yourself, using language to emphasise the progression of the story (‘At first…’ etc) and the settings.
Activity
In groups, children draw their own story map for Five Minutes’ Peace. Less able children retell the story orally in a group, using illustrations to help.

Group Readers
Boris and Sid Make a Mess

Day 1 Teaching
Introduce Boris and Sid make a mess. Look at the characters and read the first part of the book together, encouraging the use of phonics strategies to decode. Ask recap questions about what you have read, then ask what children think will happen next.
Activity
Children match pictures of key events by reading text taken from Boris and Sid Make a Mess. They then predict what might happen next.

Day 2 Teaching
Reread Boris and Sid make a mess and ask children to tell a partner what they remember about the story. Model and encourage children to practise reading with ‘story voices’ (expressively). Note the question and exclamation mark and how these influence the way that we say the sentences.
Activity
Children read in groups and answer questions about the story with an adult. They practise using expression in their reading in small groups.

Day 3 Teaching
Briefly recap the plot of Boris and Sid Make a Mess. Reread from ‘Boris flings…’ to ‘…loud sound!’ and play a sentence building game where children suggest alternative ways that Boris could make a mess. Model writing a couple of examples using simple sentence punctuation and spacing between words.
Activity
Children write their own ‘messy’ sentences using simple punctuation and spacing between words. They build sentences orally before recording.

Boris and Sid Make a Mess
Boris and Sid Make a Mess, by Ruth Merttens, is a humorous story told in a very familiar setting. The illustrations make children laugh out loud, and the text is easily decodable by beginning readers.

You can purchase printed copies of this Group Reader from Hamilton Education.

Texts
Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems

Day 1 Teaching
Recap on the home as a familiar setting for stories. Share your own special toy with children and tell them all about it. Display question prompts to structure children’s own discussions about their toy.
Activity
Children discuss their toy with a partner who relays this information back to the class. Children then build and write sentences about their toy.

Day 2 Teaching
Share the first half of Knuffle Bunny, noting the humour and illustrations. Challenge children to read the speech bubbles – what do they think she was saying? Children build a sentence for Trixie in pairs, sharing some examples using appropriate emotional expression.
Activity
Children build a sentence verbally to translate Trixie’s words. They record it in a speech bubble (see resources) using simple sentence punctuation.

Day 3 Teaching
Ask children to recap Knuffle Bunny so far, reminding you of the characters. Discuss events and settings as you read, making predictions about events and character feelings. Draw a simple story map including settings and main events (see example layout in resources).
Activity
Children use your map to retell the story verbally, first as it is in the book and then with a change of setting.

Texts
Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems

Day 1 Teaching
Display enlarged story map frame (see resources) and use to verbally retell the story of Knuffle Bunny. Then model using this to plan a new story about your toy. Model making decisions about the plot then tell the story using the plan, saying a sentence for each box.
Activity
Children plan a story about losing their toy, using the story map.

Day 2 Teaching
Display the story map frame from Day 1. Model using it to help write the beginning of the story – setting the scene. Be explicit about leaving spaces between the words and punctuating correctly including using a capital letter for names and personal pronoun ‘I’.
Activity
Children write the beginning of their stories, building sentences orally before recording.

Day 3 Teaching
Display the story map frame from Day 1 and use it to help write the problem part of the story – losing the toy. Model the process, being explicit about leaving spaces between the words and punctuating correctly. Include extending the sentence using ‘and’.
Activity
Children write the problem part of their stories, building sentences orally before recording.

Day 4 Teaching
Display the story map frame from Day 1 and use it to help write the ending of the story – finding the toy. Model the process, being explicit about leaving spaces between the words and punctuating correctly.
Activity
Children write the ending of their stories, building sentences orally before recording.