Learning By Topic KS2: Red Kites and Squirrels and English

Theme/Spelling words: environment, habitat, extinct, population, juvenile, omnivore, carnivore, herbivore scavenger, indigenous, characteristic

List spellings in alphabetical order; write synonyms and antonyms for words (where appropriate); create a crossword puzzle for your theme words; write your theme words in sentences or use all of them in a short story, include some descriptive language features e.g. similes, metaphors, alliteration and personification.

Observe and record the behaviour of red kites and/or squirrels in your local environment. Perhaps construct a table to show your observations. Now imagine you are a journalist for a nature magazine write a report/article based on your observations. (Cross Curricular: Science. Genres of writing: Description, Information Report)

‘What Am I?’ This will be the name of a card game you will create on birds of prey. Think of 4 clues about each bird and write them on a card. See if a family member or friend can guess the bird! Perhaps it could be a two player game and you could be the quiz master! Then whoever has the majority of cards at the end wins.

Red squirrels are a protected species while grey squirrels are not. Carry out some research into this.  Do you think this is fair? Why/why not? (Genre of writing: Persuasive)

Write an information report about red kites and/or squirrels. The classification task from the science section should assist with this. (Cross Curricular: Science. Genre of writing: Information Report)

Birds of prey are often portrayed as the villains in stories. Can you write a story where a red kite is the hero? (Genre of writing: Narrative)

Create a PowerPoint presentation or a blog (or vlog!) to summarise what you have learnt from this unit. (Cross Curricular: Science, History, Geography, Maths, Language)