Using a mixed-age scheme written by Sue Cave, my Year 5/6 class has done intensive work around dictionary skills, in particular how the dictionary can help us decide on the correct definite article. The end-of-unit final celebration piece is a simile poem and we decided we’d have Christmas as our theme.
The plan - dictionary work to find Christmas-themed nouns, both concrete and abstract, then draft-write, peer-check and write in neat. Last-minute changes to the timetable however meant I’d be losing the last lesson to a party so I had to cut some corners. Instead, I created a worksheet with a selection of nouns in English, their French translations and notes to show whether each was masculine or feminine (or plural in a couple of cases).
They have to choose at least 5 and then link them with colour adjectives to create their Christmas poem. Can they extend their sentences by writing about more than one noun in the same sentence? Can they write about one noun but choose more than one colour? Once their poems are complete, they will transfer them over to a bauble template, then decorate, and hang from string in the classroom.
