The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark: Non-chronological Reports

This non-chronological reports planning pack for Year 3 is based around the beloved children's story The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark. In this series of 4 lessons, your Year 3 class will look at some examples of non-chronological reports for some of the nocturnal animals that are mentioned in the story, such as bats and hedgehogs, and explore the features of this genre of writing.

As the lessons progress, they will build up the skills they need to write their own non-chronological reports on barn owls, just like Plop! They will learn how to gather facts, how to plan a report and finally write a report independently.

This four-lesson non-chronological reports planning pack provides everything you need to deliver these fun and engaging lessons, including detailed lesson plan, slideshows for the teaching inputs, differentiated activities and a range of printable teaching resources.

Features

Your Year 3 class will explore the features of non-chronological reports in the first lesson of this series. They will start by identifying what kind of owl Plop is and finding out that over the next few lessons they will be exploring, planning and writing a non-chronological report on barn owls.

They will then explore the features of non-chronological reports, and the purpose of these features, through examples of non-chronological reports about some of the nocturnal animals Plop meets on his adventures, such as bats and hedgehogs.

A detailed plan, a set of PDF slides for the teaching input, differentiated activity ideas and printable resources are all included in this downloadable pack.

View Lesson 1

Taking Notes

In the second lesson of this series, your class will do some research to find out some factual information about barn owls in preparation for writing their own non-chronological reports. They will learn how to pick out the important information in a sentence and use short bullet-pointed notes to record the facts they find out. They can also try using blackout sentences to get rid of unnecessary information in a sentence.

This Gathering Facts lesson, themed around The Owl who was Afraid of the Dark, comes with all the resources you need to deliver a successful lesson and will soon have your Year 3 class taking succinct and coherent notes.

View Lesson 2

Planning a Report

Now that your KS2 class know all sorts of facts about barn owls, it’s time to plan their non-chronological reports! The slides will remind children of the features on a non-chronological report and discuss what they need to include in their plan.

During their independent learning time, they can then arrange the information they have gathered into paragraphs (with sub-headings), plan the images and captions they will use, and prepare to write their non-chronological reports about barn owls.

This ready-to-teach pack includes a detailed plan, a set of PDF slides for the teaching input, differentiated activity ideas and a range of printable resources to support your class in their independent learning.

View Lesson 3

Writing and Editing

In the final lesson in this four-part series, your class will be writing non-chronological reports on barn owls, based on the plan they created in the previous lesson.

The included slideshow presentation for the teaching input will show them a bad example of a report for them to improve. This is to encourage your class to think about the features they need to include in their own reports and to stop them falling into common pitfalls.

They can then write their own non-chronological reports either on paper, using word processing or as a multimedia presentation. The printable resources include differentiated checklists so that your Year 3 class can be sure that they have included all the necessary features of a non-chronological report.

View Lesson 4