2KS2Year 3 and 4 – The Giving Tree
KS2 Developing thinking across the curriculum
Plan: Plan series of lessons: Language
years
Cross Curricular Skills
Language Skills
Key Questions/
Learning Objectives
Possible Learning Activities
Thinking
Plan

Asking questions

Activating prior
skills, knowledge
and understanding

Gathering
information

Determining the
process/method
and strategy

Determining
success criteria
Develop
 Generating and
developing ideas
 Valuing errors and
unexpected
outcomes
 Entrepreneurial
thinking
 Thinking about
cause and effect
and making
inferences
 Thinking logically
and seeking
patterns
 Considering
evidence,
information and
ideas
 Forming opinions
and making
decisions
 Monitoring progress
Reflect
 Reviewing
outcomes and
success criteria
 Reviewing the
process/method
 Evaluating own
Oracy
-Listen and view attentively,
responding to a range of
communication
-Identify key points and
follow up ideas through
questions and comments
-Communicate clearly and
confidently, expressing
opinions and engaging the
listener
-Develop their awareness
of the social conventions of
conversations
-Use a range of sentence
structures and vocabulary
-Develop understanding of
when they need to use
formal English
-Evaluate their own and
others talk and drama
activities.
Reading
-Develop phonic, graphic
and grammatical
knowledge, word
recognition and contextual
understanding
-Read with fluency,
accuracy, understanding
and enjoyment
-Read in different ways e.g.
-Skimming, scanning
-Using prediction, inference
and deduction
-Distinguish between fact
and opinion
-Recognise and understand
the various characteristics
of different language
genres in terms of
language, structure and
presentation
-Consider what they
To listen attentively to
a story and respond to
what has been read.
Lesson 1
Intro
Read the story to the class with music in the background (Chopin Ballade
No 4 in F minor).
Discuss the story. How do the children feel about it?
What are the main messages from the story? Did they like it? Why/why
not?
Main
Explain that they are going to discuss some big questions posed from the
story in groups. Recap on good talking rules and the importance of
coming to a group decision whilst using the chocolate chip words.
In small groups give them a ‘Big’ question to discuss. They have to record
their group ideas on post it notes and then decide upon their final answer
to be written on the first line.
After 5 minutes, rotate the papers around a group and repeat the process
and take into consideration previous group’s answer. They can stick with
answer given or write their own version on next line.
Keep going until all groups have answered 4 big questions.
Plenary
Whole class discussion on the questions that were the hardest to answer,
those that were the easiest. Why was that? How did they come to a group
consensus?
To participate in a
group discussion to
debate the ‘big
questions’ thrown up
by the book.
To be able to justify
choices and give
reasons for their
choices.
To use a range of
adjectives to describe
an object.
To draft and plan an
explanation piece of
writing – in the form of
a life cycle of an apple
tree.
Lesson 2
Intro
Recap the gifts that the tree gave the boy. What other gifts did they come
up with yesterday? (If someone mentioned apples or fruit – refer to it
here).
Main
Look at some apples with the children. Why is fruit an important gift from a
tree? Can they think of adjectives to describe the fruit?
Cut them up and carefully remove seeds and plant their seeds. Each child
then looks after their giving tree in class until it is strong enough to take
home and plant.
Play the video link below and encourage children to make notes (may
need to play twice).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DDDBwk_-bM
Remind them of the life cycle diagrams they created in previous RWI
sessions and link to information text purpose. Children begin to plan their
piece of work based on their traffic light comments from previous task.
Assessment
for Learning
tools
Whiteboards
Increase
thinking/wait
time
Big Questions
Think-pair
share
Thumbs
up/down
No hands up
Learners set
questions
KWL/KWHL
grids
Collaboration
on formulating
questions
Choice of
answers
Finding
questions
learners get
wrong
Selfassessment
Peer
assessment
Feedback
using
comments
only
Targets on
how to
improve
Two stars and
a wish
Allow time –
reflect
/respond to
feedback
learning and
thinking
 Linking and lateral
thinking
Communication
Oracy

Developing
information and
ideas

Presenting
information and
ideas
Reading

Locating, selecting
and using
information using
reading strategies

Responding to what
has been read
Writing

Organising ideas
and information

Writing accurately
Wider communication skills

Communicating
ideas and emotions

Communicating
ideas
ICT

Finding and
developing
information and
ideas

Creating and
presenting
information and
ideas
Number

Use mathematical
information

Calculate

Interpret and
present findings
Curriculum Cymreig
Personal and Social
Education
read/view, respond to
ideas, vocabulary style,
presentation and
organisation of image and
language, and be able to
support these with
evidence
-Use a range of appropriate
information retrieval
strategies including ICT
-Retrieve and collate
information and ideas from
a range of sources included
printed, visual, audio,
media, ICT and drama
performance
-Use knowledge gained
from reading to develop
their understanding of the
structure, vocabulary,
grammar and punctuation
of English, and how these
clarify meaning
-Consider how texts
change when they are
adapted for different media
and audiences
Writing
-Use the characteristic
features of literacy and
non-literacy texts in their
own writing, adapting their
style to suit the audience
-Use a range of sentence
structures, linking them
coherently and developing
the ability to use
paragraphs effectively
-Use punctuation to clarify
meaning including full stop,
exclamation and question
marks, comma, apostrophe,
bullet points, speech marks
-Choose and use
appropriate vocabulary
-Use standard English,
nouns, pronouns,
adjectives, adverbs,
prepositions, connectives
and verb tenses
-Develop and use a variety
of strategies to enable them
to spell correctly
Plenary
Share ideas for their work – can we catch anyone else’s ideas?
To redraft and create a
piece of explanation
writing, using their
previous targets to
help them improve.
To discuss how they
could rebuild the tree.
To draw upon previous
learning and debate
the reasons why trees
are important to us.
To make comparisons
between video and
book.
To write a book review.
Lesson 3
Intro
Recap on yesterday’s session. Have they made accurate enough notes?
Do they want to see the video again?
Main
Pupils work on creating their life cycle texts. Some can use computers if
they want to.
Plenary
Pupils share their work with the rest of the class.
Lesson 4
Intro
Reread the story to the class. Explain that the children are going to rebuild
the giving tree. Discuss ‘Think, Pair, Share’ how could they do it?
Main
Show children the tree display and ask them to think about all the work
they have done on what a tree needs in order to survive and flourish.
In pairs children write down all the gifts the child could have given to the
tree as they rebuild it. E.g. water it, nutrients, plant seeds, reading it
stories, talking to it. Record ideas on the How to rebuild the giving tree
.doc
On wrapping paper cards children write what gift they would like to give
and hang it on the tree.
Plenary
Children share their thoughts as they hang their ‘gifts’ on the tree.
Lesson 5
Intro
Watch the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TZCP6OqRlE is it
more helpful to have an animation? How does it differ from hearing the
book being read?
Main
Get the pupils to write a book review based on The Giving Tree.
Differentiate by task. Use success criteria
Plenary
Chose some children to read their reviews – do the others feel it is a fair
reflection? Why? Why not? Children evaluate each other against the
success criteria.
Homework
Children design a giving journal – they have to record all the times they
were given something or someone gave them something over the
weekend. Reflect upon this journal on Monday.
-Use appropriate
vocabulary and terminology
to consider and evaluate
their own work and that of
others
-Draft and improve their
work, using ICT as
appropriate, to:
-Plan, draft, revise, proofread, prepare the final copy
-Present writing
appropriately:
-Legible handwriting, using
appropriate features of
layout and presentation,
including ICT
Resources