Stories with familiar settings
(4 weeks or 2 x 2 weeks)

This is the first of a block of four narrative units in Year 1. It builds on children's experience and knowledge from the Early Years Foundation Stage and introduces new areas of learning that will be developed during the year. The unit can be linked to many other curriculum areas such as history or personal, social and health education. It can be taught in two sequences each lasting two weeks, as illustrated below, or as a single 4-week unit. The teaching sequence is repeated but the texts read and the writing outcomes are different.

Sequence 1 phase 1

Read a selection of stories with incidents and settings familiar to the children. Identify characters, settings and main events.

Sequence 1 phase 2

Re-enact stories using puppets, story boxes, etc. Order events in the correct sequence.

Sequence 1 phase 3

Use role-play to explore imaginative ideas based on a theme from reading and devise a class story. Take photographs to use as a story plan. Demonstrate how to write the story. Children write their own versions of the story.

Sequence 2 phases 1 and 2

As above, using different stories.

Sequence 2 phase 3

Tell a story based on your own experience. Demonstrate how to compose a short written version. Pairs recount their own experiences and draw a sequence of pictures. Children write a story based on their own experiences.

Overview

• Read several stories during the unit which are based around incidents and settings that are familiar to the children. Identify where the story takes place, who is involved and what happens. Introduce the words 'character', 'setting', 'events'. Demonstrate how to apply word reading skills and strategies and involve children in using these strategies themselves.
• Children identify the main events in a story and re-enact using, for example, props, pictures or puppets.
• Identify and discuss a familiar experience in a story, for example getting lost. Children make links with their own experiences.
• Explore imaginative ideas arising from this using role-play, for example 'The day Class 1 got lost'. Make a simple story plan, for example using a sequence of photos from the drama activity. Demonstrate how to write sentences to tell the story. Reinforce the application of spelling strategies and correct sentence punctuation. Make a class book.
• Children recount their own real or imagined experiences orally. They record their plan by drawing a sequence of pictures, then writing sentence(s) to retell the story in writing. The sequence could be repeated twice using different books as a starting point.

1998 Framework objectives covered:

Year 1, term 1: T1 and T2 reinforce and apply reading skills and strategies; T3 oral and written forms; T4 read independently; T5 relate story settings and incidents to own experience; T7 re-enact stories; T8 spelling; T9 write about events in own experience; T11 make picture story books.