The Butterfly Lion: Newspaper Reports

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This newspaper reports KS2 planning pack bases four complete lessons on Bertie's return from the war in the story of The Butterfly Lion. Your Year 5 class will discuss the effective use of different grammatical and structural features of a newspaper report, including relative clauses and direct and reported quotes. Using The Butterfly Lion activity ideas within this planning pack, your Year 5 class will enjoy learning new grammatical terms in context using the ready-made examples of newspaper reports.

Teacher Note: The children’s writing will be based on the events in Chapter Eleven - ‘A Miracle, A Miracle!’. They will need to know these events well, so it is best to teach this scheme as soon after reading this chapter as possible.

This scheme of work contains all the plans, slides and printable resources needed to teach your class about newspaper reports in the context of this story.

Features

Using the model texts and newspaper report examples included in this complete KS2 planning pack, help your class recap on the features of a newspaper report and analyse if they have been used effectively in the examples. Using the engaging teacher input slides, focus on the introduction to a report and identify the different ‘5Ws’ in each report, discussing and thinking about why this is used by the author and how it can be done effectively.

Challenge your class to write a draft of their own report based on a point in the story of ‘The Butterfly Lion’ supported by the accompanying printable resources.

View Lesson 1

Direct and Reported Speech

Investigate the use of quotes in a newspaper report and why they are used using this complete direct and reported speech KS2 lesson pack. Use the included lesson input slides to explore the differences between direct and reported speech with your Year 5 class and the effect that each creates within the report, deciding which version of the quote works better in the context.

The accompanying printable resources and activity ideas that come in the lesson pack will challenge your class to gather quotes from the characters in the story through role-play or by listening to recordings of the characters expressing their views.

View Lesson 2

Relative Clauses

This 'Butterfly Lion' themed, relative clauses KS2 lesson plan and accompanying resources introduces your class to the use of relative clauses in their newspaper reports to add information about a person or objects.

Your class will explore how relative pronouns can be used to define or identify a noun as well as using commas to separate a relative clause from the rest of the sentence. They will then practise writing a relative clause about the people involved in the report and add these into the plan for the first draft.

This ready-to-teach pack includes a comprehensive plan, engaging PDF slides, differentiated activities, and printable resources to support your lesson delivery.

View Lesson 3

Writing and Editing a Report

This final lesson in this newspaper reports KS2 planning pack has your Year 5 class writing their own report based on Bertie’s return to England after the war.

Children have the opportunity to apply their learning about relative clauses, direct and reported speech in their own writing and evaluate and assess the effectiveness of each feature they have used. Encourage the children to act as real newspaper editors when improving their writing to create a high-quality final draft.

Within this pack, you'll find a detailed teaching plan, engaging PDF slides, a range of differentiated activities, and handy printable resources, all ready for use.

View Lesson 4