You Will Need
Texts
Five Minutes' Peace by Jill Murphy
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English Blocks or English Plans?
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Free English Resources on Hamilton
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Hamilton Group Readers
Hamilton have produced books in printed and digital formats specially for children to read in small groups.
Fiction
English Year 1 Autumn Familiar Settings
Family Stories
Read Jill Murphy's Five Minutes' Peace, Mo Willems' Knuffle Bunny and Group Reader Boris and Sid Make a Mess, inspiring children to write a familiar settings story.
The planning and resource documents for each session in this English block are free to all users.
We recommend that you start with the core unit, the heart of this English block of study. This introduces key textual material and sets the tone for any further units you wish to teach. These can be selected on the basis of the needs of your class – look at the green icons to identify the unit’s particular focus: SPAG, Composition or Comprehension. Whichever units you choose, we suggest teaching them in order, as there is a built-in progression indicated by the numbering.
‘UNIT PLAN’ gives you a text version of all parts of the unit to use in your school planning documentation. ‘DOWNLOAD ALL FILES’ gives you that unit plan plus all of the associated documents. These bulk downloads are added value for Hamilton Friends and School Subscribers.
Unit 1 Core: Characters, settings and problems in stories
(suggested as 3 days)
Objectives
Spoken Language
-- Listen and respond appropriately to adults and peers.
-- Maintain attention and participate actively in collaborative conversations.
-- Use spoken language to develop understanding.
-- Participate in discussions.
-- Give well-structured descriptions.
-- Speak audibly and fluently.
Word Reading
None for this unit
Comprehension
-- Listen to and discuss stories.
-- Link what they read or hear read to their own experiences.
-- Recognise and join in with predictable phrases.
-- Discuss the significance of the title and events.
-- Become very familiar with key stories, fairy stories and traditional tales, retelling them and considering their particular characteristics.
Transcription
None for this unit
Composition
None for this unit
Grammar
-- Use a capital letter for names of people.
Teaching and Activities
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.
Unit 2 Comprehension: Group/paired reading; discuss a story; building sentences
(suggested as 3 days)
Objectives
Spoken Language
None for this unit
Word Reading
-- Apply phonic knowledge and skills as the route to decode words.
-- Read aloud accurately books that are consistent with their developing phonic knowledge.
-- Re-read books to build up their fluency and confidence in word reading.
Comprehension
-- Link what they read or hear read to their own experiences.
-- Check that the text makes sense to them as they read and correct inaccurate reading.
-- Discuss the significance of the title and events.
-- Say out loud what they are going to write about.
-- Predict what might happen on the basis of what has been read so far.
-- Participate in discussion about what is read to them, taking turns and listening to what others say.
-- Explain clearly their understanding of what is read to them.
Transcription
None for this unit
Composition
-- Compose a sentence orally before writing it.
-- Re-read what they have written to check that it makes sense.
-- Discuss what they have written with the teacher or other pupils.
Grammar
-- Leave spaces between words.
-- Join words and join clauses using and.
-- Begin to punctuate sentences using a capital letter.
You Will Need
Group Readers
Boris and Sid Make a Mess
Teaching and Activities
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.
Group Readers
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.
Unit 3 SPAG: Build sentences; sentence punctuation; retelling and changing a story
(suggested as 3 days)
Objectives
Spoken Language
-- Listen and respond appropriately.
-- Give well-structured descriptions.
-- Use spoken language to develop understanding through speculating, hypothesising, imagining and exploring ideas.
Word Reading
None for this unit
Comprehension
-- Listen to and discuss stories.
-- Make inferences.
-- Predict what might happen.
-- Participate in discussion about what is read to them.
Transcription
None for this unit
Composition
-- Say out loud what they are going to write about.
-- Compose a sentence orally before writing it.
-- Re-read what they have written to check that it makes sense.
-- Discuss what they have written with the teacher or other pupils.
Grammar
-- Leave spaces between words.
-- Join words and join clauses using and.
-- Begin to punctuate sentences using a capital letter and a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark.
-- Use a capital letter for names of people.
You Will Need
Texts
Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems
Teaching and Activities
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.
Unit 4 Composition: Extended writing: write a lost toy story
(suggested as 4 days)
Objectives
Spoken Language
-- Use spoken language to develop understanding through speculating, hypothesising, imagining and exploring ideas.
Word Reading
None for this unit
Comprehension
None for this unit
Transcription
None for this unit
Composition
-- Say out loud what they are going to write about.
-- Compose a sentence orally before writing it.
-- Sequence sentences to form short narratives.
-- Re-read what they have written to check that it makes sense.
Grammar
-- Leave spaces between words.
-- Begin to punctuate sentences using a capital letter and a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark.
-- Use a capital letter for names of people and the personal pronoun ‘I’.
-- Join words and join clauses using and.
You Will Need
Texts
Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems
Teaching and Activities
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.