This text based, 5 session English planning uses music and song on a sea theme to investigate feelings and growing up. The focus is on developing contrasting vocabulary and rhyme, following simple repetitive patterns and using imagination to add to well-known songs.

All aspects of poetry from the national curriculum in reading, spoken language and writing composition will be covered across the full set Au1-Su2.

National curriculum skills for this unit:

Spoken language:

• Build vocabulary
• Use spoken language: imagining and exploring ideas
• Maintain attention and participate in collaborative conversations
• Speak audibly and fluently

Reading comprehension:

• Listen to and discuss a wide range of poems at a level beyond that which can be read independently
• Link what is read or heard to own experience
• Recognise and join in with predictable words and phrases
• Learn to appreciate rhymes and poems
• Recite some rhymes and poems by heart

Writing composition:

• Say out loud what is going to be written about
• Re-read what they have written to check it makes sense
• Discuss what has been written with the teacher or other pupils
• Read aloud their writing clearly enough to be heard by their peers and the teacher

For schools that use Pathways to Write, this unit aligns with the Au1 set 1 unit.

Poems for this unit can be found online.

Some are also included in Hey, Little Bug! Poems for Little Creatures by James Carter