Finding

8-10 yrs old

11-13 yrs old

Reading and Writing

Infer characters’ feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions, justifying inferences with evidence : Point+Evidence+Explanation.

Submitted By: Litcraft

August 30, 2019

Lesson Plan
My Notes

Download Assets

Print Lesson Rework Lesson

Skills

Creativity
Critical Thinking

External References

Kensuke's Kingdom World File

Kensuke's Kingdom world in Minecraft to support lessons.

Litcraft Website

LITCRAFT uses the popular Minecraft gaming platform to build accurate scale models of authorial maps from classic works of literature.

Supporting Files

Finding

Full lesson plan and additional activities.

Kensuke's Kingdom Extracts

Extracts from Kensuke's Kingdom to support activities.

Learning Objectives

Infer characters’ feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions, justifying inferences with evidence : Point+Evidence+Explanation.
Explain the meaning of new vocabulary within the context of the text.

Guiding Ideas

This series of lessons is designed to help teach English Language Arts concepts through the study of Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo.

Reading aloud/shared reading of Chapter 4 ‘Gibbons and Ghosts’

Students work in groups and focus on the first section of the chapter where Michael is in the sea (pp.45-48).

Identify, from the text, any direct mentions of feelings, thoughts, motives and actions. Record on a coloured post-it note.
Using this evidence, consider any inferred meaning in this section of the text. Generate vocabulary to describe how Michael might be feeling. Give justifications for this. Record on a different coloured post-it note. Don’t accept rubbish words e.g. sad, scared.
Feedback.

Shared reading/reading aloud of the rest of the chapter.

Discuss the words “surreptitious” (p.56), “mellifluous” (p.58), “benefactor” (p.62). Students could play a version of ‘Call My Bluff’ with these words to test the other children in the group and learn their meanings that way.

Focus on Michael’s description of the island (pp.49-59) + highlighted in EXTRACTS.

Read the extract included in the External Resources section and answer the questions:

What are Michael’s two strongest feelings in this passage? What two words sum these up?
Identify three geographical features of the island.
What kind of landscape is this?

Student Activities

In-Game Activity: Finding

Start by loading the Kensuke's Kingdom Minecraft world file found in the resources section.

Using the map from the front of the book move around the island and find the beacons. At each one read the extract from the text. Then read the question in the journal and write your own answer there.

The beacons can be found at or near:

Michael’s cave on the West (also find and release the dog, Stella)
- “I found a small cave at one end of the beach with a dry sandy floor. I lay down and tried to sleep but Stella would not let me. She whined at me in her hunger and thirsty so that I slept only fitfully.” p.59.
- Q: Why can’t Michael sleep? What does “fitfully” mean?
Somewhere on the red sand border that runs across the island.
- “Kensuke. I , Kensuke. My island.” And he brought his hand down sharply like a chopper, separating the island in two. “I, Kensuke. Here. You, boy. Here.” P. 72.
- Q: What is Kensuke trying to say? How is his hand “like a chopper?”
Follow the sandy path up the island through the forest to Kensuke’s cave. The beacon is at a little cross-roads.
- “The cave house must have been entirely furnished by him, fashioned mostly from flotsam: the chests, the workbench, the shelves and the table.
- Q: What does this description tell you about Kensuke? What is “flotsam”?
By Kensuke’s boat (outrigger) to the East of his cave.
- “he picked up two of his fishing rods and a net, and led the way. “Today we catch big fish, Mica, not small fish.”
- Q: What does the outrigger allow Kensuke to do?

Follow up writing activity: Carry on Michael’s Ship’s Log

Write about being thrown overboard and discovering the island.

*This writing activity will develop over a sequence of lessons. It will involve engagement with first person writing and form, and the use of different sentence types taken from the Y6 objectives.

Follow Up /Cross-curricular activity: Focus on the work of the Japanese artist Hokusai.

The children could recreate their own version of the famous wave painting linking in with Michael being thrown overboard.

Performance Expectations

Students are active participants in each activity.
Students are able to infer characters’ feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions, justifying inferences with evidence : Point+Evidence+Explanation
Students are able to explain the meaning of new vocabulary within the context of the text.