FINDING OUT
Key questions:
What is a rainforest and what are rainforests like?
Why are rainforests important?
What’s happening to them?
The Vanishing Rainforest by Richard Platt is used to
introduce information and key vocabulary on the topic of deforestation. Through close reading, book-talk and discussion children gather information and begin to explore the issues raised through wider reading and independent research. / Learning outcomes
Children can read to find specific information points in a narrative and refer to examples in the text.
Pupil Targets (SfW) that could be used to differentiate guided and independent activities during Phase 1.
Year 3 - Level 2a / Year 3 - Level 3c / Year 3 - Level 3c
Strands 7/8 Understanding and interpreting texts, Engaging and responding to texts
Explore underlying themes and ideas in poems and narrative. Demonstrate a clear idea of where to find information to support ideas. / Identify basic features of writers’ use of language, e.g. where language is used to create mood and build tension. / Discuss the actions of main characters and justify views with reference to the text.
Talk for Writing / Book talk
Session 1
Objectives
To understand why characters act the way they do and explore their dilemmas.
To refer to the text to back up ideas. / Whole class
Introduction to the topic
Show the class the double-page spread illustration inside the front cover of The Vanishing Forest and play the audio file rainforestambience.wav several times as an ambient soundtrack . Can the children spot or hear any clues to help them work out the setting for the books they’ll be reading in this unit?
Use questioning to activate children’s prior learning about rainforests and establish what they already know.
Summarise and collect the main points they offer as shared notes and add to them with some key Did you know that....? facts about rainforests. Use an atlas or globe to show them where the Amazon basin is.
EXAMPLES
§ More than half the world's species of plants and animals are found in the rainforests.
§ Scientists believe that there are still millions of species of plants, insects, andmicro-organismsliving in rainforests that have not yet been discovered.
§ The Amazon rainforest covers more than two and a half million square miles, more than any other rainforest.
§ One in five of all the birds in the world live in the Amazon rainforest.
§ Scientists estimate that one square mile can contain over 75,000 types of trees and 150,000 different species of plants.
Shared reading
Read the text to the bottom of page 16.
TfW Book talk: Eliciting response
What are the children’s personal responses to the story so far?What are the nabë doing in the forest? What is the main problem the rainforest tribe are facing?
Focus on the character of Moawa. What kind of person is he? Encourage children to refer explicitly to the text as they explore the character and his feelings / motivation for helping the nabë. What questions would they like to ask Moawa about his actions?
Role-play and drama
Hot seating
Invite one child to take the role of Moawa and hot seat the character to find out why he has agreed to help the nabë even though they are destroying the habitat of his people. Support children in asking open questions to find out pertinent information, and model the use of effective questions if necessary. EXAMPLES Please tell us why, Moawa. How did you feel about that? Can you tell us more about your life in the Amazon rainforest? / Plenary
Establish the names and identities of main characters introduced so far and ask the children to summarise what we know about them. Support the class in drawing on both explicit and implicit information from the text, e.g. ‘Remaema’s grandfather was right.’ He was old and wise.
Session 2
Objective
To develop responses to the text and make direct reference to words and phrases. / Whole class
Shared reading
Read from page 17 to the end of the story and model use of the Glossary.
TfW Book talk: Extending response
Invite children’s collective responsesto the text. The story is fiction but in what ways do they think this book provides non-fiction information for readers?e.g. The book is about a fictional group of people but it provides information about what a rainforest is like and also includes a Glossary, typical of a non-fiction information text.
Shared reading
Using audiovisual software (e.g. Powerpoint, Voicethread) with the IWB, demonstrate how to collect and record words and phrases from the text that provide information about life in the Amazon rainforest. Use the illustration on page 8 at the centre and write your notes around it. / Suggested independent / guided activities
Children complete their own collection of information words and phrases from the text using audiovisual software (e.g. Powerpoint, Voicethread etc). Each group has a different page and records phrases. Groups access one another’s files and ask questions or make comment.
Children read in pairs to collect six more information facts and note them, then pairs join to create small groups of four or six and pool their notes to edit out any repetitions of information and create a group list.
round house, insects / buzzing, small clearings, fruit trees, hammocks... / Plenary
Compare and discuss groups’ lists of information words and phrases from the text to create a shared understanding of what a rainforest is like. What do the children think it would feel like to live there?
Which words have come up most frequently amongst the groups?
Which are least frequent? Is this because they are least relevant?
Arrange ideas onto ‘zone of relevance’ circles.
Session 3
Objective
To know, understand and use key vocabulary to create atmosphere. / Whole class
Shared writing in response to reading
As they explore their responses to the text in more depth, invite the children to help you think of words to describe the rainforest and demonstrate the use of the free downloadable Wordle software. Model its use if the class hasn’t used it before.
Use the illustrations to help suggest ideas, e.g. inside cover double spread: dense, green, dark, colourful, steamy, fertile, shadowy, dappled.
Create the word list and decide together which words to write in multiples so they are dominant by size in the final Wordle. Which words do the children think should be largest and what colours or fonts will help to convey the mood and feelings they want to create? / Suggested independent / guided activities
Independent writing
Children work in small groups to create their own Wordles.
Possible Guided writing
Linked to 3C targets: work with a group to find and use a different selection of words that will create a more sombre and menacing Wordle, suggesting the dark side of life in the rainforest since the nabë
arrived.
(Save the groups’ Wordles for use in Session 5) / Plenary
Revisit the shared notes from Session 1 (rainforest facts) and the text, to draw children’s attention to any additional topic words they will need to use during the unit, e.g. deforestation, conservation
Session 4
Objective
To extend knowledge and find information through wider reading and research. / Whole class
Use an illustration, photograph or video clip to show the class the four different rainforest levels commonly defined: forest floor, understory, canopy and emergent.
Tell the children they are going to find out more about each of these different parts of the forest. How are they different from each other? Why are they each important in their own way to the people who live there?
Shared reading
Teacher modelling
Using either a large format non-fiction text or a digital /online source, search for, locate and collect information about the forest floor layer. Make very brief notes either by recording separately (e.g. scribing on a whiteboard) or by copying and pasting digitally, or a second open document. / Suggested independent / guided activities
Provide a range of information texts appropriate for each group to research information about the understory, canopy or emergent layer.
Ask children to find out about the animals that live in the layer they are researching. This background information will support their understanding of the text used in Phase 2. / Plenary
‘Jigsaw’ the groups so that they each share their facts with children from other groups.
Session 5
Objective
To develop children’s personal response to a text. / Whole class
Shared reading
Tell the children that there is one more section of the book that they have not yet read. Read together ‘Why rainforests matter’ page 28
TfW Book talk: Encouraging critique
How does this part of the text add to the rest of the book? In what way is it different? is it a part of the story or something separate? Why did the author include this extra page at the end of the story? / Suggested independent / guided activitiesTfW Book talk: Encouraging critique
Small group discussionDiscuss together which part of the book works best at persuading us that the rainforest should be saved. Do children think the most persuasive ingredient is:
the characters? the events in the story? the illustrations? the additional information? a combination of several ingredients?
Children order the ‘ingredients’ using Diamond ranking. / Plenary
Hear each group’s views and discuss as a class the ways that The Vanishing Rainforest acts persuasively on us as readers. Clarify the ways that text and illustrations work together as well as the importance of the choices the author made about viewpoint, characters and language.
To conclude Phase 1, display children’s Wordles from Session 3 for the class to enjoy reading as a slideshow, playing an audio file of rainforest sounds or music for effect.Learning Link to Phase 2: We’ve found out what rainforests are like and what’s happening to them but what does ‘deforestation’ really mean for those whose home is the rainforest?
Phase 2 (4 days)
EXTENDING UNDERSTANDING
Key question:
How does the disappearing rainforest affect the daily lives of the people and animals who live there?
The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry is used to focus on the ways writers can use language for effect. Children read as writers and explore authorial choices of words and phrases used to create empathy and persuade. Children dig deeper into the text to discover the issues for animals who live in the rainforest. They collect and share facts within and beyond the fictional narrative. / Learning outcomes
Children can identify text features used for effect, including sentence structure and vocabulary.
Children can retell the story using modelled persuasive language.
Pupil writing targets (SfW) that could be used to differentiate guided and independent activities during Phase 2
Year 3 - Level 2a
/ Year 3 - Level 3c
/ Year 3 - Level 3c
/
Strands 7/8 Understanding and interpreting texts, Engaging and responding to texts
Explore underlying themes and ideas in poems and narrative. Demonstrate a clear idea of where to find information to support ideas. / Identify basic features of writers’ use of language, e.g. where language is used to create mood and build tension. / Discuss the actions of main characters and justify views with reference to the text.Talk for Writing / Reading as a writer
Session 6
Objectives
To read a complete text on the same theme and respond by thinking as a writer, reflecting on the whole text as well as the author’s choices at sentence and word levels. / Whole class
Tell the class they’re going to read another story about the rainforest by a different writer. This time the story isn’t just about the people who live there.
Show the class the world map inside the front cover of The Great Kapok Tree and ask if they recognise any of the animals around its borders. Children who researched specific animals in Phase 1 can contribute their knowledge at this point. (Which layer does the boa constrictor inhabit? Where does the anteater live?)
Shared reading
Read together the introduction opposite the title page and check children’s understanding of vocabulary: e.g. environment, community, vines, emerges
TfW: Reading as a writer
Invite children to choose their favourite phrases that begin to bring the forest to life for a reader even before the story has started: everything grows, and grows and grows / colourful parrots / monkeys leap / silent snakes / graceful jaguars. Encourage children to be specific about why they like a particular phrase: carefully chosen words that are effective describers, use of alliteration or repetition for a sound effect that adds to the impact, powerful verbs that help us to imagine the lively scene, small details that fill in the background and help our imagination to work?
Continue shared reading for the first two pages of the story to “ ... lulled him to sleep.” / Suggested independent /guided activities
In guided and independent reading, children read the next ten double-page spreads (ten left-hand pages of text). Groups then decide why/how the animal is persuading the logger not to cut the tree. Children record using thought and speech bubbles.
When the children have read each new text section, they discuss how each visitor tries to persuade the man to leave the tree standing. / Plenary