English Unit Overview

Instructions and Explanations:

Gameshows and Quizzes

For the last part of this term we are learning about instruction writing and explanation texts. We are learning about TV gameshows and we will be identifying the differences and similiarities between explanations and instructions.

Explanations tell us what something is about and instructions tell us how to do it.

We will work on adding information about time, place and cause to add more detail to our writing using conjunctions, adverbs and prepositions. We are even going to work on paragraphs.

By the end of the unit we will be able to effectively write instruction and explanation texts of our own.

We are using Countdown as one of our gameshows to learn about - some of us weren't keen as we didn't like the timer counting down. It was a lot of pressure for us.

We compared Countdown to Pointless and as part of our learning we gave our opinions on which gameshow sounded the best. Lots of us preferred Pointless because it was interesting and we wanted to get a pointless answer. 

Fiction Stories

In English we are reading the story of Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl.

We are then using this story to learn more about how to create an imaginary world and how to create a range of interesting characters. We are exploring how to use adjectives, adverbs and verbs in a story to build tension and create excitement for the readers. We are looking at how to punctuate direct speech in the text before finally creating our own alternate ending to the story.

Look out for our alternate endings coming soon on our finished pieces page..

Newspaper Reports

This term in english we are looking at creating recounts in the form of Newspaper reports.

We will be looking at the different features of a Newspaper report including:

• Headlines
• Introductions
• Captions
• Quotes

We are also focusing on simple past and perfect present form in out writing this term.

Our reports will be based on the volcanic eruption in Pompeii.

We will be using Escape from Pompeii by Christina Balit and The Roman Record, which is an anthology of newspaper reports, to support us with our learning.

Recounts - Diaries and recounts

For this unit we are going to be writing a recount of an event in the style of the books we are looking at.

We will build on our grammar knowledge from Year 2 by looking at adverbs for time, place and manner as well as looking at 1st person recounts. We will look at features of diaries and different points of view. Then we will recap writing and punctuating direct speech before writing our own recount. We will have to be careful that we don't confuse them with the reports from the last unit and make sure the events are in chronological order - that means time order!!

Non-Chronological Reports

We are writing Non-Chronological reports about Sports!

We have completed lots of research using a book all about different types of sports.

We have looked at basketball, Football, Netball, Sailing and Skiing along with many others.

While learning about Non-Chronological Reports we also looked at how we use conjunctions and adverbs to develop and extend our sentences!

Shape Poems

In the Autumn term we have learned about different types of shape poems:

• We looked at calligrams – poems/words which look like the meaning of the word e.g. growing.
• We created animal poems during this unit by using words that described the animals to create their shape.
• We recapped our Year 2 learning on writing in the past tense and how lots of verbs need -ed on the end but some trick us and the word changes.
• We talked about what we like or don’t like about specific poems and how they are set out. We thought carefully about how to express our opinion and respect other people’s opinions.
• We recapped using noun phrases in our writing to make it more interesting.
• We made decisions about what we wanted our final poem to be on

Fictional Stories

We have been looking at a range of stories by the same author.

We looked at 'I'll take you to Mrs Cole' and 'Dinosaurs and All That Rubbish!'

by Michael Foreman

We focused on learning how to correctly punctuate direct speech.

Here are some of the rules we learned: