Castles: Non-chronological Reports

This Year 2 KS1 Castles English Planning Pack contains everything you need to teach your Year 2 class to write a high-quality non-chronological report about castles.

In this 7-lesson KS1 unit, children will explore a range of non-chronological reports about castles. They’ll identify key features in model texts, use subheadings to find information, and research how castles were attacked. Along the way, they’ll practise converting tenses, using varied sentence starters and adjectives, and planning paragraphs. By the end, pupils will write their own detailed non-chronological report on castles.

This seven-lesson non-chronological reports Year 2 English Planning Pack provides everything you need to deliver these fun and engaging lessons, including detailed lesson plans, slideshows for the teaching inputs, differentiated activities and a range of high-quality printable teaching resources.

You may also like our Castles Topic Bundle containing four ready-to-teach schemes of work all themed around castles. Great for cross-curricular teaching! 

The Key Features of Non-chronlogical Reports

In this Key features of Non-chronological Reports KS1 English Lesson Pack, your Year 2 children will begin by sorting facts from opinons about castles. This starter activity provides the ideal way into demonstrating that a non-chronological report is made up of factual informaton.

Using the interactive slideshow that comes as part of the pack, children will then choose which of seven castle doors to go through! Each door leads to a different key feature of non-chronological reports. A high-quality model text is used to demonstrate each of the key features and questions posed by the medieval characters on the slides encourage children to think about why each feature is useful to the reader. In the main activity, children will use their learning to identify and explain the features in another model text about the people who lived and worked in a castle. At the end of the lesson, children are shown a non-chrobological report without many key features and work with their partner to explain what is missing and why these features would help the reader.

This Year 2 KS1 English Lesson Pack is ready to teach, with a detailed lesson plan, engaging slides for input and differentiated activities, all at the click of a button. The children will love the family of friendly castle characters who bring the interactive slideshow to life!

View Lesson 1

Answering Questions

The friendly castle characters of the slideshow then take children through how to answer comprehension questions about castles using the subheadings as signposts. Your KS1 class will be shown how to scan for key words in the text and then 'read around' it in order to find the answer to the question.

The friendly castle characters of the slideshow then take children through how to answer comprehension questions about castles using the subheadings as signposts. Your KS1 class will be shown how to scan for key words in the text and then 'read around' it in order to find the answer to the question.

Everything you need to help your Year 2 class become experts in finding answers to questions in non-fiction texts is here! An engaging slideshow, a detailed lesson plan and fully differentiated and resourced activities.

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Researching Castles

In this Researching Castles Year 2 English Lesson Pack, children will firstly recap on how to answer questions about castles using the subheadings of a non-chronological report to help them.

Your Year 2 class will then learn how to use a model text about how castles were attacked to research factual information. In a shared reading session, children will be shown how to record factual information they find in their own words. Half of the class will then research sieges and siege towers whilst the other half will become experts in battering rams, mangonels and trebuchets! Differentiated, high-quality texts are included so children will have everything they need to find loads of interesting information to share with their partner at the end of the lesson.

This Researching Castles Year 2 Lesson Pack is ready to teach, with a detailed lesson plan, engaging slides for input and high-quality texts to use for researching how castles were attacked.

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Writing in the Past Tense

In this Writing in the Past Tense Year 2 English Lesson Pack, children will firstly have a go at identifying verbs from a collection of words. They will learn that verbs can be written in the present or the past tense. The friendly castle characters on the engaging slides then help children to learn about the spelling rules for changing present tense verbs to the past tense.

Your KS1 class will then practise changing sentences about castles into the past tense. Once confident, they will go off and choose a sentence card about castles from the centre of their tables. this will be written in the present tense and their job will be to decide which topic it is about (parts of a castle, people in a castle or attacking a castle) and then write it under the correct heading in the past tense. This activity therefore helps children to write in the past tense but also gets them to start to think about organising facts of related information into groups. This will be really useful later in the unit when they come to plan the paragraphs for their report! At the end of the lesson, a fun matching game on the board will help your Year 2 class revise changing verbs to the past tense correctly.

Everything you need to teach this exciting lesson is included in the pack including a detailed lesson plan, the engaging slideshow and all the carefully differentiated, printable resources you will need.

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Improving Sentences

In this Improving Sentences KS1 English Lesson Pack, your Year 2 children will begin by reading a paragraph from a non-chronological report about castles and will decide whether statements displayed are true or false.

Your KS1 class will then look at a paragraph from a non-chronological report about castles which uses the same sentence starter over and over again! They will think of others and the friendly castle characters on the slides will teach children some new ones. After then recapping on what an adjective is, children will practise improving sentences as a class to make them more interesting for the reader. Back at their tables, children will love the worksheet where they must find their way through a maze to re-unite a knight with his missing horse! Along the way, they must change base sentences into more interesting alternatives using a sentence starter and adjectives. Word banks and differentiated versions of the maze sheet are all included in the pack to make this lesson a success.

This Improving Sentences Year 2 Lesson Pack is ready to teach, with a detailed lesson plan, engaging slides for input and differentiated activities, all at the click of a button.

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Planning a Non-chronological Report

By now, your Year 2 class will have all the knowledge and skills required to plan a high-quality non-chronological report on castles.

In this lesson, your KS1 children will use a planning format to plan their paragraphs. They will think of a heading and develop questions that can form subheadings. They will also plan the images and captions they intend to use in their final report. Detailed fact sheets are included in the pack to support children planning a detailed non-chronological report about castles which they will be able to use to write with confidence.

This Planning a Non-chronological Report Year 2 Lesson Pack contains everything you need to help children produce a high quality plan for writing including a detailed lesson plan, slideshow, differentiated planning frames and fact cards.

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Writing a Non-chronological Report

In this Writing a Non-chronological Report Year 2 English Lesson Pack, children will use everything they have learnt over the unit to produce a detailed non-chronological report about castles with key features.

The lesson begins with a quick game of 'Did you know...?' in which a bean bag is passed around the circle. Children use the sentence starters on the slide to practise telling the class factual sentences about castles they can remember from this unit. Then, it's time for the children to use differentiated writing frames to produce their non-chronological report about castles. Their colourful appearance will inspire children to write a quality text and will look lovely if mounted and displayed on the wall in your classroom. At the end of the lesson, a 'class gallery' will provide children with the opportunity to read each other's writing about castles. The sentence starters and checklist of the key features of non-chronological reports on the slides will help children evaluate their own and each other's writing.

This Writing a Non-chronological Report KS1 Lesson Pack contains everything you need to help children produce a high quality non-chronological report about castles including a detailed lesson plan, slideshow, differentiated writing frames and word banks.

View Lesson 7