Maya, South America, Amazon bundle

A bundle of book-based resources to support topic work on the ancient Maya, the Amazon and South America. Included in this pack are four sets of Starting Points notes for Rain Player, the Chocolate Tree, The Great Kapok Tree, and The Shaman’s Apprentice. Each of these is available separately on the Primary English website, but can be downloaded here as a value-for-money bundle.

Rain Player: Starting Points

In this Starting Points set based on Rain Player by David Wisniewski you’ll find ideas to support spoken language, reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary and spelling. This Starting Points resource will give you everything you need to plan a beautiful book-based unit of work for children in lower KS2.

In this set of Starting Points, we have planned for the following grammar learning:

• Revision of inverted commas and other punctuation to indicate direct speech.

• Relative clauses beginning with who, which, where, when, whose, that or an omitted relative pronoun

• Indicating degrees of possibility using adverbs (e.g. perhaps, surely) or modal verbs (e.g. might, should, will, must).

• Adverbials used to link ideas within and across paragraphs, including tense choices.

• The perfect forms of verbs.

Resources include:

• Direct speech activity

• Modal verbs and adverbs of possibility activity

• Patterns of direct speech resource

• Role on the Wall sheet

• Tell Me prompt

• Y5/Y6 Statutory words

The Chocolate Tree: Starting Points

In this Starting Points set based on The chocolate Tree by Linda Lowery, you’ll find ideas to support spoken language, reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary and spelling.

In this set of Starting Points, we have planned for the following grammar learning:

• Noun phrases expanded for description and specificity Use of fronted adverbials

• Correct punctuation of fronted adverbials

• Indicating degrees of possibility with adverbs of possibility and modal verbs.

• Devices to build cohesion (noun and pronouns, rhetorical questions, adverbials of time)

• Use of commas to clarify meaning or avoid ambiguity How words are related in meaning (antonyms)

• Use of similes to support visualisation and improve description

• Dialogue used to develop the narrative

Resources include:

• Adverbials table

• Book review

• Role on the Wall

• Vocabulary and definitions

• Commas table

• Questions stems

The Great Kapok Tree Starting Points

In this Starting Points set based on The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry you’ll find ideas to support spoken language, reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary and spelling.

In this set of Starting Points, we have planned for the following grammar learning:

• Revision of expanded noun phrases

• Revision of the four sentence types (statement, question, command, exclamation)

• Revision of subordination and co-ordination

• Knowing whether to use ‘a’ or ‘an’ depending on whether the next word begins with a consonant or a vowel

• Word families based on common words

• Expressing time, place and cause using conjunctions

• Introduction to paragraphs as a way to group related material

• Introduction to inverted commas to punctuate direct speech.

Resources include:

• a or an activity

• sentence type activity

• Vocabulary and definitions

• Word builder activity

• Y3 and Y4 statutory words

The Shaman’s Apprentice: Starting Points

In this Starting Points set based on The Shaman’s Apprentice by Lynne Cherry, you’ll find ideas to support spoken language, reading, writing, grammar, vocabulary and spelling.

In this set of Starting Points, we have planned for the following grammar learning:

• Relative clauses beginning with who, which, where, when, whose, that or an omitted relative pronoun

• Adverbials used to link ideas within and across paragraphs, including tense choices.

• Linking ideas across paragraphs using adverbials of time, place and number or tense choices

• Use of commas to clarify meaning or avoid ambiguity

• Use of dash to mark the boundary between independent clauses

• The subjunctive mood

Resources include:

• Book review

• Preposition Pack

• Commas table with text examples

• Past perfect activity using examples from the text