The Great Kapok Tree planning pack – a series of five ready-to-teach English lessons for Year 4, using Lynne Cherry’s book as the basis for exploring the genre of persuasive letter writing with your KS2 class.

Children will first become familiar with The Great Kapok Tree, and discuss the important message that the author is promoting through the story. They will then look at examples of different persuasive writing features before gathering information and creating their own ideas to use in a letter, in which they try to persuade a logging company to stop cutting down the rainforest.

Each of The Great Kapok Tree lesson plans in this persuasive letter writing KS2 English pack includes an easy-to-follow plan, an engaging and informative slide show for the teaching input, and a range of differentiated worksheets and activity ideas - an entire week of lessons all prepared for you!

Please be aware that, for copyright purposes, we are unable to provide the full text for this scheme of work. Extracts are provided where appropriate.

You may also like our 'The Rainforest Biome' Geography scheme of work for Year 3/4.

Save up to 30% on this scheme of work when you create your own Mix and Match Rainforest Topic Bundle – perfect if you want a cross-curricular approach to your planning!

Becoming Familiar with the Text

In this first The Great Kapok Tree lesson plan, your KS2 children will read and discuss the book as a class, becoming familiar with the setting, characters and events.

Using The Great Kapok Tree activities provided in the lesson pack, your class will demonstrate their understanding of the text by answering a range of differentiated reading comprehension questions. In the alternative activity, children are challenged to retell the story as a role-play, either in groups or as a whole class.

A detailed plan, engaging slide show and differentiated worksheets are all included with this The Great Kapok Tree lesson plan - everything you need for an easy-to-teach, fun lesson!

View Lesson 1

Features

In this Features of Persuasive Writing KS2 lesson, your class will first focus on the author's letter to the reader at the end of The Great Kapok Tree and discuss her reasons for doing so.

As a class, children will then explore some persuasive writing features, looking at and discussing various examples. In their independent activities, they will read and sort different sentences according to the persuasive feature/s they use.

This Features of Persuasive Writing KS2 lesson pack includes an easy-to-follow plan, informative slide show, and differentiated resources!

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Gathering Information and Ideas

Your Year 4 class will begin by recapping the nine persuasive features of writing that they looked at in the previous lesson on The Great Kapok Tree, and complete an activity that asks them to think about the importance and effectiveness of each feature.

In their independent activities, children will then begin to gather information and ideas for each different persuasive feature to use in a letter to a logging company that asks them to stop cutting down trees in the rainforests.

This Persuasive Writing Year 4 planning pack contains everything you need for a successful KS2 English lesson - a detailed plan, an engaging set of slides for the teaching input, and differentiated worksheets and activity ideas to suit a range of learners in your class.

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Structuring and Drafting a Letter

In this Writing a Persuasive Letter KS2 lesson, your Year 4 class will being by recapping and discussing some of the issues that are caused by logging companies, as revealed in The Great Kapok Tree.

They will then explore how to structure their persuasive letter, and what each section should include. In their independent activities, children will draft their letters, using the information and ideas they gathered in the previous lesson.

Use this Writing a Persuasive Letter KS2 lesson to encourage your class to apply their knowledge and understanding of persuasion! Everything you need to teach a successful lesson is included - a detailed plan, an engaging slide show, as well as differentiated worksheets.

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Editing and Improving

Use this Edit and Improve Writing KS2 lesson to teach your class how to assess their persuasive letters to a logging company, inspired by The Great Kapok Tree.

As a class, children will first look at and discuss how each section of a given persuasive letter has been improved. They will then assess and edit their draft letters from the previous lesson by using given statements or questions as a basis for their improvements, before writing their final version of the letter.

Included with this Edit and Improve Writing KS2 lesson pack is a detailed plan, an informative slide show for the teaching input, as well as differentiated worksheets.

View Lesson 5