Lesson Planning
Non-fiction
English Year 2/3 Autumn Recounts
Space Travellers
Enjoy two books featuring the 1969 moon landings, The Sea of Tranquility by Mark Haddon and The Darkest Dark by astronaut Chris Hadfield. Compose chronological reports about Apollo 11's mission. Plan and write recounts and fact files about dream jobs. Explore subordinating conjunctions and common prefixes.
Start with the core unit to introduce key texts. Then select from comprehension, SPAG and composition units.
Unit 1 Core: Exploring and responding to recounts
(suggested as 5 days)
SPaG: Grammar and Punctuation
There is no spelling and grammar presentation for this unit.
You Will Need
Essential Texts
The Darkest Dark by Chris Hadfield and Kate Fillion, illustrated by the Fan Brothers
The Sea of Tranquility by Mark Haddon and Christian Birmingham
Weblinks
BBC Teach Apollo 11 Moon Landings Resources
National Geographic for Kids The Moon Landing
BBC Archive, The Moon Landings, featuring text and links to several short documentary film sequences, including Sir Patrick Moore’s description of the 1969 landings (2:19)
Film of the Moon Landings at (2:30)
BBC Newsround, The Apollo 11 Moon landings: everything you need to know including the short film, What was the space race? (2.32)
CBS News archive article about the Apollo 11 mission’s return to earth(1:05) and Splashdown video (1:09)
Unit 2 SPaG: Conjunctions
(suggested as 3 days)
Lesson Planning
SPaG: Grammar and Punctuation
You Will Need
Essential Texts
The Darkest Dark by Chris Hadfield and Kate Fillion, illustrated by the Fan Brothers.
Weblinks
Chris Hadfield brushing his teeth in zero gravity (3:00)
Chris Hadfield’s fellow astronaut Suni Williams on sleeping aboard the ISS (from 0:00 to 2:20).
Chris Hadfield himself on making a sandwich in space (2.26)
Astronaut Karen Nyberg on washing hair on board the space station (2.57)
Toilets aboard the ISS (2.45)
Karen Nyberg running on a treadmill (3.00)
Astronauts playing ‘space tennis’ (2.35)
Unit 3 SPaG: Reading and spelling words with common prefixes
(suggested as 2 days)
Lesson Planning
SPaG: Grammar and Punctuation
There is no spelling and grammar presentation for this unit.
You Will Need
Essential Texts
The Sea of Tranquility by Mark Haddon and Christian Birmingham
Unit 4 Composition: Recounts and ‘fact file’ information sheets
(suggested as 5 days)
Lesson Planning
SPaG: Grammar and Punctuation
There is no spelling and grammar presentation for this unit.
You Will Need
Essential Texts
The Darkest Dark by Chris Hadfield and Kate Fillion, illustrated by the Fan Brothers
The Sea of Tranquillity by Mark Haddon and Christian Birmingham