Year 1 Writing Journey
In year 1 we have worked really hard this Autumn term and have produced some super writing! We are very proud of all the progress and writing they have done this term! Please enjoy reading this blog and sharing in the children’s writing journey.
What Pirates Really Do – captions
In our first writing topic, we used the book What Pirates Really Do by Melanie Joyce to inspire us to write our own captions about pirates for a class book.
First, the children learnt what a verb is. A verb is an action, or ‘doing word’. Once they had learnt what a verb was, they gave each other verbs to act out.
Next, we read the book What Pirates Really Do by Melanie Joyce. As we were reading the book, we spotted the verbs on each page.
Then, we applied what we had learnt about verbs to build our own captions for the pictures in the book.
Finally, the children published their own captions about what pirates really do for a whole class book, finishing it off with an illustration.
Pirate Fact Files – non-fiction reports
For this unit, our aim was to create a fact file for our very own pirate character. The children needed to understand non-fiction texts and their features before beginning to write their own reports about a pirate.
First, we explored the differences between fiction and non-fiction books and sorted a selection of books into these categories. After that, we looked at the features of a non-fiction book. Working with our partners, we found the title, headings, contents pages, facts and paragraphs.
Next, we created our own pirate character to base our non-fiction fact file on. We used adjectives to describe what our pirates looked like and tried to guess our friends pirate characters based on their descriptions.
Then, as a class, we came up with ideas about what our pirates liked to do. Under the heading What does the pirate like to do? we wrote a page of our fact files using our knowledge of verbs to write sentences about our pirates.
Finally, as a class, we came up with ideas about what our pirates liked and didn’t like. Under the heading What does the pirate like or not like? we wrote the final page of our fact files.
Things Found in a Pirate’s Pocket – poetry
We were inspired by an Ian McMillian poem about a Wizard’s pocket for this unit. As we were thinking about pirates in our first half term, we wanted to create our own versions of the poem describing the things that a pirate might have in their pocket.
First, we read the poem Ten Things Found in a Wizard’s Pocket by Ian McMillan. As a class, we came up with movements to help us remember the poem. We then took time to practice the poem and we performed it as a whole class.
Then, as a class, we thought about the objects (nouns) that you could find in a pirate’s pocket. After we had come up with a list of objects, we learnt that we could describe these nouns using adjectives.
Together, we used our senses to describe the things in the pirate’s pocket using adjectives.
‘A squawking parrot.’
‘An old creaky ship’
‘A sharp sword’
‘A magic key to a treasure chest.’
‘Shiny gold coins’
Next, we planned our own poems about the things in a pirate’s pocket. We collected our ideas in our books by writing a list of nouns with adjectives to describe them. This helped us when we wrote our Things Found in a Pirate’s Pocket poem.
Finally, we used our writing from last lesson to publish our poems for others to enjoy.
Monkey and Me – stories with repetitive phrases
In this unit, we became authors of our very own story books! We we inspired by Emily Gravett’s Monkey and Me and the repeating phrases in it.
First, we explored the story of ‘Monkey and Me’ by Emily Gravett through a dramatic Whoosh! The children used their acting skills to embed the story and its repetitive phrases.
After that, we used our knowledge of the story and our sequencing skills to put the story in order and retell it.
Next, we created our own story maps by choosing five animals we would go and see in our own version of ‘Monkey and Me.’
Then, we practised and used our performance skills to retell our stories of ‘Monkey and Me’.
Following this, we wanted to improve our stories of Monkey and Me by adding adjectives. So we used our phonics skills to sound out and write interesting adjective for the animals in our story.
Then, we talked about how we could improve our stories of Monkey and Me even more by adding verbs. So we used our phonics skills to sound out and write verbs for the animals in our story.
Finally, we used our learning over the week to publish our own ‘Monkey and Me’ story books. We improved our stories by applying the super verbs or adjectives to our story sentences.
