Reading for Pleasure

This term our daily storytimes will take us on an epic adventure to Giant Country with Sophie and the BFG!  We can't wait to find out whether Sophie makes it back alive or if she gets eaten by one of the giants!

If you have not read the story you can find out a little more here...

On a dark, silvery moonlit night, Sophie is snatched from her bed by a giant.  Luckily it is the Big Friendly Giant, the BFG, who only eats snozzcumbers and glugs frobscottle. But there are other giants in Giant Country. Fifty foot brutes who gallop far and wide every night to find human beans to eat.

Can Sophie and her friend the BFG stop them? Let’s hope so – otherwise the next child a gruesome giant guzzles could be YOU.

Literacy and Language (Reading, writing, speaking, and listening)

In this Unit, children explore the poems 'The Balloons' by Oscar Wilde, 'My Sari' by Debjani Chatterjee and 'At the End of a School Day' by Wes Magee. The emphasis is on enjoyment of the poets' use of language to create images and emotions. The texts focus on moments to remember: everyday moments observed, recalled and shaped into poems. Children are encouraged to experiment with language and form to create a poem of their own in free verse.

The children will be challenged to write a poem in free verse about a small, unexpected event with the following success criteria:

My poem:

• describes one particular moment in great detail.
• creates strong feelings and makes a vivid picture in the reader's mind.
• uses poetic features, e.g. alliteration, simile and personification.
• is written in free verse, so I have used line breaks instead of commas to show the reader where to pause when reading aloud.

Non-Fiction

Linked via a Big Question, the Non-fiction section explores recounts and journalistic texts. Where appropriate, the children will be encouraged to develop an awareness of audience and purpose in relation to the fiction and non-fiction texts they are reading and writing.

During reading the children will:

• develop their understanding of both personal and newspaper recounts
• understand that recounts are organised in chronological order, in the past tense
• identify the key information in a recount by using the 5Ws - Who? What? When? Where? and Why?
• learn to identify points of view, facts and opinions in recounts and understand how they change the reliability of the recount.

During Writing the children will be challenged to write an article in the style of a recount, using language and features that are typical of a newspaper using the following success criteria.

My article:

• is in chronological order (the order that things happened)
• shares the most important information with the reader by answering the 5Ws
• includes quotations to add detail or give a point of view
• experiments with the language and features of sensationalist newspaper articles, e.g. revelation, exaggeration, speculation and sensation.

Grammar:

• uses the third person past tense.