Real Writing Year 1 - Unit 12
Model text: The Three Little Pigs, by Lucy Strange
Curriculum links: Design and technology (materials)
Unit overview
This writing unit for Year 1 is built around an original text by Lucy Strange - a retelling of a familiar 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 begin to learn the features of traditional tales and retell the story orally. They will write their own version of the Three Little Pigs, changing the materials that the houses were made from. This unit could be used to develop pupils’ familiarity and understanding of traditional stories or within a topic on materials, exploring materials that houses are built from and designing their own houses for the three little pigs.
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: learn how the suffix -est can be added to words to create superlative adjectives
Pupils will: learn how to add the prefix -un to words, and how this changes the meaning..
2. Grammar: to join clauses using and
Pupils will: learn how the conjunction ‘and’ can be used to join clauses. They will rehearse combining simple sentences to create compound sentences before writing their own based on the story The Three Little Pigs.
3. Composition: to sequence sentences to form short narratives
Pupils will: use story image cards to orally sequence and retell the story of The Three Little Pigs. The children will also be introduced to simple story telling language to help them sequence their oral story telling.
Additional teaching points to teach or revisit:
- saying out loud what they are going to write about
- composing sentences orally before writing, including using adjectives
- leaving spaces between words
- using capital letters and full stops to punctuate sentences
- using exclamation marks
- reading aloud their own writing
Year 1 words: featured vocabulary
Common exception words: once a said no to be you of the house come my were one was his they
Tier 2 words: adventure, chimney, clever, collapsed, pan, strong, weak
Tier 3 words: N/A