You Will Need
Texts
Maisie’s Dragon by Philippa Danvers - Available on Hamilton Player
Optional texts
Dogger by Shirley Hughes
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English Blocks or English Plans?
Which to use: Hamilton’s new flexible English blocks or our adaptable weekly plans?
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Free English Resources on Hamilton
Find out which Hamilton English planning resources you can access for free.
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Hamilton Group Readers
Hamilton have produced books in printed and digital formats specially for children to read in small groups.
Non-fiction
English Year 2 Summer Recounts
Reading and Writing Recounts
Inspire children to write creative recounts by reading great imaginative texts, including The Velveteen Rabbit. Grammar includes subordinate clauses, present and past progressive verbs.
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.
Unit 1 Core: Exploring a recount of a sequence of imaginary events
(suggested as 4 days)
Objectives
Spoken Language
-- Gain, maintain and monitor the interest of the listener(s).
-- Use relevant strategies to build their vocabulary.
-- Use spoken language to develop understanding through speculating, hypothesising, imagining and exploring ideas.
Word Reading
None for this unit
Comprehension
-- Become increasingly familiar with and retell a wider range of stories, fairy stories and traditional tales.
-- Discuss the sequence of events in books and how items of information are related.
-- Predict what might happen on the basis of what has been read so far.
Transcription
None for this unit
Composition
-- Plan or say out loud what they are going to write about.
-- Write down ideas and/or key words, including new vocabulary.
-- Reread to check that their writing makes sense.
-- Evaluate their writing with the teacher and other pupils.
Grammar
None for this unit
Teaching and Activities
Day 1 Teaching
Read the start of Maisie’s Dragon by Phillipa Danvers. Think of the questions that you would ask Maisie and see how they are answered on the first page of the book. Read the events up until the point that Maisie is lost.
Activity
Use sorting cards to talk about and re-tell the events from Maisie’s Dragon. Introduce Time Connectives as the events are recounted.
Day 2 Teaching
Use a Recount Diagram to remember the events from Maisie’s Dragon. Talk about different possible conclusions.
Activity
Work with a partner to draw and write possible conclusions to Maisie’s Dragon. Read the conclusion from the book and record it on the Recount Diagram.
Day 3 Teaching
Use a Recount Plan to note the introduction, events and conclusion of Maisie’s Dragon. Model how some of these details can be changed to create a new recount.
Activity
Record ideas for a new recount, working individually and with a partner. Talk through events, using time connectives.
Day 4 Teaching
Model using the Recount Plan in order to write a new version. Show how you use time connectives as you do this.
Activity
Children write their recounts in sentences. They evaluate their work with a partner. Finish by enjoying and discussing Dogger by Shirley Hughes and recording events from this book on a Recount Diagram.
Unit 2 SPAG: Subordination and Coordination: Conjunctions
(suggested as 3 days)
Objectives
Spoken Language
-- Use spoken language to develop understanding through speculating, hypothesising, imagining and exploring ideas.
Word Reading
None for this unit
Comprehension
-- Participate in discussion about books, poems & other works that are read to them.
Transcription
None for this unit
Composition
-- Re-read to check that their writing makes sense.
Grammar
-- Learn how to use: co-ordination (using or, and, but).
-- Learn how to use: subordination (using if, when, because, that).
-- Use and understand the grammatical terminology in English Appendix 2 in discussing their writing.
-- Learn how to use both familiar and new punctuation correctly (see English Appendix 2), including full stops [and] capital letters.
You Will Need
Texts
I Love You, Blue Kangaroo! by Emma Chichester Clark
Maisie’s Dragon by Philippa Danvers - Available on Hamilton Player
Teaching and Activities
Day 1 Teaching
Read I Love You, Blue Kangaroo by Emma Chichester Clark, making comparisons with Maisie’s Dragon. Use a sentence from the book to introduce and talk about the idea of coordinating conjunctions.
Activity
Read sentences about the first part of the book, cut them out and experiment with combining them using coordinating conjunctions. Write some of these as complete sentences.
Day 2 Teaching
Tell the events from I Love You, Blue Kangaroo. Use sentences from the book to introduce and explain about subordinating conjunctions.
Activity
Read sentences about Lily’s birthday and then add a subordinating conjunction and a subordinate clause to them. Write some of these as complete sentences.
Day 3 Teaching
Re-tell the events from I Love you, Blue Kangaroo. Look closely at the illustration of the baby’s bedroom. Read a description of this and identify the conjunctions that have been used.
Activity
Discuss and then write a description of Lily’s bedroom, using conjunctions for coordination and subordination. Introduce and talk about The Velveteen Rabbit, which is used in Unit 4.
Unit 3 Comprehension: Reading and discussing recounts
(suggested as 4 days)
Objectives
Spoken Language
-- Use spoken language to develop understanding through speculating, hypothesising, imagining and exploring ideas.
Word Reading
-- Read accurately by blending, including alternative sounds for graphemes.
-- Read most words quickly & accurately without overt sounding and blending.
Comprehension
-- Participate in discussion about books, poems and other works that are read to them and those that they can read for themselves, taking turns and listening to what others say.
-- Discuss the sequence of events in books and how items of information are related.
-- Become increasingly familiar with and retell a wider range of stories, fairy stories and traditional tales.
-- Discuss their favourite words and phrases.
-- Answer and ask questions.
-- Predict what might happen on the basis of what has been read so far.
Transcription
None for this unit
Composition
-- Plan or say out loud what they are going to write about.
-- Write down ideas and/or key words, including new vocabulary.
Grammar
None for this unit
You Will Need
Texts
The Dragon Machine by Helen Ward
Group Readers
Boris and Sid go camping (provided below)
Teaching and Activities
Day 1 Teaching
Read the first half of The Dragon Machine by Helen Ward, looking carefully at the illustrations and discussing the vocabulary. Make predictions about what might happen next.
Activity
Use sentences or images to sequence the events from the first half of The Dragon Machine. Retell the events to a partner. Talk together about whether and why the events have to be in a particular order.
Day 2 Teaching
Read the second half of The Dragon Machine by Helen Ward. Talk about the events and George’s feelings.
Activity
Work with a partner to read the text or a summary of the second half of The Dragon Machine. Write sentences to summarise these events. Use a Recount Diagram to make a record of the events.
Day 3 Teaching
Introduce the characters of Boris and Sid and read a more challenging version of Boris and Sid Go Camping. Use a Recount Diagram to make a record of events.
Activity
Read the Hamilton Group Reader: Boris and Sid Go Camping or, for a challenge, the harder version. Write answers to questions about this set of events.
Day 4 Teaching
Revisit the characters of Maisie, George, Boris and Sid. Talk about how they are all imaginary. Think of ideas for other events that could happen to them. Model how to record these on a simple New Events chart.
Activity
Work with a partner to talk about ideas for new events for either Boris and Sid or George. Record these on a New Events chart and then tell them to a new partner. Work together to record one child’s ideas on a Recount Diagram.
Group Readers
Boris and Sid go camping
This gives an account, told from a child’s perspective, of a fun camping trip where it rains – and rains! Many children will empathise with the familiar context while reading this simple recount.
You can purchase printed copies of this Group Reader from Hamilton Education.
Unit 4 SPAG: Present and past progressive verb forms
(suggested as 3 days)
Objectives
Spoken Language
-- Maintain attention and participate actively in collaborative conversations.
-- Use spoken language to develop understanding.
Word Reading
None for this unit
Comprehension
-- Participate in discussion about books that are read to them taking turns and listening to what others say.
-- Predict what might happen on the basis of what has been read so far.
Transcription
None for this unit
Composition
None for this unit
Grammar
-- Use the present and past tenses correctly and consistently including the progressive form.
You Will Need
Texts
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
Teaching and Activities
Day 1 Teaching
Read or tell the first part of The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. Look at the Christmas Morning illustration from the book and use sentences about this picture to revise the past and present tense and to introduce the progressive form.
Activity
Read and sort sentences into the past and present tense. Spend time talking about the Skin Horse’s conversation with the rabbit.
Day 2 Teaching
Read or tell the next part of The Velveteen Rabbit. Look at the illustration on the front cover. Write sentences about what is happening in this picture and use a Grammar Poster to introduce the present progressive form.
Activity
Look closely at four more illustrations from the book and then write sentences, in the present progressive form about what is happening in each of them. Make predictions about how the story will end.
Day 3 Teaching
Read or tell the end of the story and talk about it together. Use the Fairy Flower illustration to think about what the boy was doing while this was happening. Write a sentence together and use this and the Grammar Poster to introduce the past progressive form.
Activity
Imagine what the boy was doing for each of the four illustrations from the book and then write sentences in the past progressive form. Talk together about how The Velveteen Rabbit compares with the other imaginary recounts we have read.
Unit 5 Composition: Writing recounts
(suggested as 4 days)
Objectives
Spoken Language
-- Use spoken language to develop understanding through speculating, hypothesising, imagining and exploring ideas.
-- Gain, maintain and monitor the interest of the listener.
Word Reading
None for this unit
Comprehension
None for this unit
Transcription
-- Form lower-case letters of the correct relative sizes.
-- Form capital letters appropriately.
Composition
-- Write narratives about personal experiences and those of others (real and fictional).
-- Plan or say out loud what they are going to write about.
-- Write down ideas and/or key words.
-- Encapsulate what they want to say, sentence by sentence.
-- Evaluate their writing with the teacher and other pupils.
-- Re-read to check that their writing makes sense and that verbs to indicate time are used correctly and consistently.
-- Proofread to check for errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation.
Grammar
None for this unit
You Will Need
Text
Maisie’s Dragon by Philippa Danvers - Available on Hamilton Player
Teaching and Activities
Day 1
Children plan a recount in the format of an anecdote – where the stimulus is ‘Guess what happened to me…’. Children re-read a recount in this form, and then brainstorm ideas for suitable anecdotes of their own.
Activity
Drawing on familiar examples, children use a planning stimulus Recount Questions (see resources) to generate and create ideas and to begin to record these in a useful format.
Day 2
Children look at examples of suggested ideas for their recounts and complete a planner together. They discuss how it does not matter if we have empty boxes on the planner, and also the importance of a good sequence and a conclusion to our recounts.
Activity
Children use the Planner (see resources) to record their sequence of events. They use words and phrases and also pictures as they feel appropriate.
Day 3
Display Recount Planner from Day 2 and also a Recount Diagram (see resources). Model and shared-write a draft recount. Include a demonstration of the use of time connectives from Unit 2 and past progressive from Unit 4 if you have taught these Units.
Activity
Children begin to write their recounts using the Recount Diagram (see resources).They complete their introductions. Remind children of appropriate time connectives to sequence their recount.
Day 4
Discuss the need to evaluate your own writing as you go, and to make additions and improvements before you produce a final copy for publishing. We shall make a class book or a display of all our recounted anecdotes.
Activity
Children work with a partner and read their partner’s recount and talk about where your feedback might apply. They then re-draft their recounts producing a final copy using their best handwriting. Use this for your performance, display or class collection.