A 4 week unit of work based on Hayao Miyazaki's animated movie "Spirited Away". Children will watch the movie in small chunks and through the 4 week unit will explore the world using a range of literary skills and unique drama activities such as recreating different rooms in the bath house or becoming part of the story with a Story Whoosh. The outcome is that the children will rewrite a particular scene in the movie, using their experiences of the bath house through the drama, role play, grammar activities and even some area and perimeter numeracy to help them map out and describe what they see and where they go. Also included is a lesson on drawing faces in a manga style. The unit is fantastic for drawing in reluctant readers and EAL and SEN children who would otherwise struggle to access text based units of work and could easily be adapted to a Year 3 or Year 5 class. Included: 4 Weeks of detailed Literacy plans, resources and whiteboard files with visual instruction aids, differentiated to include EAL and SEN support with grammar foci that lead into the end of week writing piece. 1 Week of numeracy based on area and perimeter with a small project on creating a map of the bath house to tie into their final writing piece, with included resources and whiteboard files. 1 Lesson of manga face drawing with included whiteboard files. Not included: The movie itself! The plans detail exactly where to stop the movie however, so one thing to do might be to rip the DVD and chop the file up with some video editing software so you don't have to find the place again or you don't run past a section you didn't mean to!

A 2 week unit of work on The Tempest by William Shakespeare using the animated BBC Radio adaptation for Year 4 children. Could easily be adapted for Years 3-5. The unit looks at the structure of playscripts and gives plenty of opportunity for role play and acting. The unit finishes with the children creating their own “deleted scene” to the play, writing and performing the scene in groups. There is also a chance for the children to create their own masks of the characters in order to use in their performances. The plan is detailed and contains instructions for the TA and differentiation for less able and more able children. Contains SMART Notebook files for each day of the plan, with each day’s resources clearly labelled and adaptable. Ideal for getting some speaking and listening in a meaningful context!