HOOK: Paignton Zoo

To start off our first Year 3 topic, we went to the zoo in search of deadly animals…

English

After reading ‘100 Deadly things on the planet’ by Anna Claybourne, we learnt what makes a non-chronological report exciting: asking the reader questions, showing the viewpoint of the author and including details to make it interesting.

We learnt how write in compound and complex sentences to add detail for the reader (Jack: “Just like a bat, the black mamba lives in the gloomy crevices of rocky hills.”) We used precise adjectives to describe nouns (Chloe: “The tiger camouflages itself against the tall, golden bamboo canes which help to disguise it.”)

We edited and re-drafted our reports, proof-reading for errors as we went along.

Geography

Through our geography, we learnt about the climate of the habitats of some deadly animals. We learnt how the earth is divided by the equator and how this indivisible line impacts on the climate of different countries. We then used this to help write the ‘Habitat’ section of our reports.

Once we had written our non-chronological reports, we worked in groups to plan and record our own episodes of Deadly 60! We used a green screen app on the iPad to change the backgrounds for the different sections of our reports.

We hope you enjoy our episodes as much as we enjoyed making them!