Real Writing Year 1 - Unit 1
Model text: The Enormous Turnip, by James Nicol
Curriculum links: Geography, science (the seasons, plants and harvest)
Unit overview
This writing unit for Year 1 is built around an original model text by James Nicol - a retelling of a traditional tale. The example text is available as a PDF in three versions (plain, illustrated and annotated); annotated and non-annotated PowerPoint presentations are also included.
In this two-week unit, pupils will create story maps to help them retell the story as a class, in groups and individually, culminating in them writing their own version of this traditional tale about a different giant vegetable.
Key curriculum skills
Three fully-resourced lessons are included for the following Year 1 English objectives, which can form part of the unit or be taught discretely:
1. Vocabulary: To blend and segment words using the phonemes taught
Pupils will: practise blending and segmenting words used in the model text, as well as other examples.
2. Grammar: To know how words combine to create sentences
Pupils will: create sentences using words provided and orally rehearse creating sentences using the images of vegetables provided.
3. Punctuation: To leave spaces between words
Pupils will: orally compose and rehearse sentences, before writing these using finger spaces to separate words
Additional teaching points to teach or revisit
- saying out loud what they are going to write about
- beginning to punctuate sentences with capital letters and full stops
- sequencing sentences to form short narratives for pupils who are ready
- Year 1 words: featured vocabulary
Common exception words: the, a, pull, so, once, there, was, house, were, they, one, love
Tier 2 words: enormous, favourite, budge, plait, fetch, beard
Tier 3 words: turnip, vegetable, autumn, harvest, crop