All About Me: How I Am Growing Up

OBJECTIVES:

To begin to keep a record of books read.

To know and practise some ‘good reading’ habits.

To demonstrate active learning and to engage with others in a conversation.

To recount experiences and explore possibilities.

To listen carefully and respond appropriately, asking questions of others.

To plan writing through discussion or speaking aloud.

To choose interesting words and phrases.

RESOURCES:

Laptop, PC or tablet | Pencils | Pens | Colouring pencils | Atlas, globe or map of your area .

VOCABULARY:

Words in bold can be found in the Year 2 English Glossary.

What to Get Ready

Before today’s lesson, Login to Big Cat Books and search for Growing and Changing. Have it open and have it ready to read.

Open the My Reading Journal PowerPoint and check that you are able to use the ‘Screen Clipping’ tool.

To do this, click on the ‘Insert’ tab and then click on the ‘Screenshot’ icon. You will then see an option for ‘Screen Clipping’. If you click on ‘Screen Clipping’ you will be taken to whatever page you have open behind the PowerPoint file.

If you have Big Cat Books: Growing and Changing open, you will be able to clip a picture of the cover, which will then insert itself into the PowerPoint file.

Delete this image and be ready to demonstrate the process to your student in the lesson.

If you are unable to use PowerPoint, you can make a Reading Journal for your student using a notebook or some sheets of paper fastened together.

Have your student's Good Reading Habits poster nearby to refer to.

Introduction

Before today’s lesson, Login to Big Cat Books and search for Growing and Changing. Have it open and have it ready to read.

Open the My Reading Journal PowerPoint and check that you are able to use the ‘Screen Clipping’ tool.

If you have Big Cat Books: Growing and Changing open, you will be able to clip a picture of the cover, which will then insert itself into the PowerPoint file.

Delete this image and be ready to demonstrate the process to your student in the lesson.

If you are unable to use PowerPoint, you can make a Reading Journal for your student using a notebook or some sheets of paper fastened together.

Have your student's Good Reading Habits poster nearby to refer to.

READING & WRITING SKILLS

Developing Reading Skills

Look at the Good Reading Habits poster. Number 8 says, Record everything you have read in a Reading Journal. Tell your student that today they will begin recording the titles of books they have read in a journal.

If you are using a notebook or paper journal, open the journal to the first page and write the title, ‘Books I have had read to me’.

Ask your student, ‘What are the names of the two stories we listened to at the beginning of the last two lessons?’ (Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers and Max the Brave by Ed Vere). Write these onto the page.

On the next page write the title, ‘Books I have read’. On this page, you can write Growing and Changing.

Tell your student that some books can appear on more than one page in the journal. Write the following titles onto pages in the journal:

Books I enjoy reading.
Books I don’t enjoy reading.
Books that I need help to read.
Books that are easy for me to read.
Books I would like to read.

Talk to your student about any other books they have read that they could include on any of these pages of their journal. Spend some time writing them in together.

If you are using the PowerPoint File My Reading Journal, show your student the slide titled ‘Books I have had read to me’. There they will see the covers of Max the Brave and Lost and Found.

Now show them the slide ’Books I have read’. Demonstrate how they can use the Clipping Tool to add an image of the cover for Growing and Changing to the slide.

Now look through the other slides and read their titles. Talk to your student about other books they have read or had read to them. Can they add any more to the slides? You can either type in the names of the books or find images to represent them online.

Remind your student that this is their reading journal and they can organise it in any way they would like to. They can add pages with titles of their choosing, for example, ‘Books about Dinosaurs’ or ‘Books about Science’. They could also ask for recommendations from family and friends and have a ‘Recommended Reads’ page or a ‘Book Wishlist’ page to keep track of books that they might like to ask for as gifts on special occasions or buy with money they have saved.

Make it part of your Reading Routine to update the journal either daily or once a step with new books read in lessons.

Main Activity

Remind your student that we ask questions to find out information and that we can quietly ask ourselves questions to help us work out what we need to know.

Whisper together: ‘What do I want to find out?’ Then say that today’s book page is all about where we live and who we live with. Agree that you want to find out where you live.

Show your student an atlas, globe or map of your area (or go to Google Earth). Show them where they live in the world and talk about what country they live in. Talk about if it is hotter or colder than other parts of the world, near the sea or if it is near other countries. Encourage your student to listen as you talk together.

Then ask:

What information have we now got about where we live?

Show your student Page 3 Where I Live and Page 4 And Who I Live With. Explain that today they are going to work on two pages all about where they live and who they live there with.

Talk about the two pages. There is a lot of space on each page for them to draw a picture. They may also write words and labels to describe the picture (and to name family members, for example).

Encourage them to write neatly so that other people can read their writing easily.

When they have finished, ask them to talk to you about the different people they have drawn on Page 4.

Ask:

Why do you live with these people?
How are they related to you and to each other? (For example: they are sisters, he is my brother, she is my wife, we are friends, she is your aunt, and so on.)
Why do we live in families? Why are families important? (For example: for company, to help look after each other, because we all love each other, and so on.)

Finally, talk about one thing that you can do together this step to show kindness to the people you are at school with or who you live with. Agree together on what you are going to do. Write it on the back of Page 4 or agree to take a photograph of it later and put it in the book.

Extra Support

If your student needs support with writing, then ask them to tell you a sentence that you can write down for them in the book. Then encourage them to practise saying their next sentence out loud to make sure it makes sense before you write it.

What to Notice

While they are doing this activity, remember to praise your student for the skills they are using.

For example:

‘You have lovely thoughts about where you live and who you live with.’

‘You are thinking very hard about what you can draw. The detail is very good and the labels are clear and well-written.’

Handwriting and Spelling

Spellings for this step are focused on the sounds /n/ spelt ‘kn’ and less often ‘gn’ at the beginning of words.

Please practise these words with your child:

gnat
gnaw
gnash
gnome
gnarled