Year 5 or Year 6 - Outstanding Poetry 2-week Unit (about the Rainforest)

The picture book ‘The Great Kapok Tree’ that can be used as an introduction to the unit – it talks of both the beauty of the rainforest and the choices humans have between conservation and destruction. After reading this, the children move onto looking at the poem ‘For Forest’ from ‘Caribbean Dozen’ by Grace Nichols and then Japanese Haiku poems about the same topic. The children will read and perform a range of poetry about the rainforest.

Lessons include:

• Inferring characters’ feelings
• Performing poetry
• Planning a poem
• Writing a descriptive poem

Planning only

Every lesson follows this pattern:

Retrieval Practice
Guided Practice
Independent Practice
Plenary