Wombat Goes Walkabout (Fiction: Narrative)

In this writing unit, children will embark on a creative journey alongside Wombat as he explores the Australian bush in Wombat Goes Walkabout by Michael Morpurgo. The story offers rich opportunities for children to develop their writing skills while engaging with a fun and adventurous narrative. Through listening, speaking, and writing activities, children will learn to notice and describe characters, actions, and settings, and gradually build their own short narratives inspired by the book.

The unit is designed to encourage children to think like writers: planning their ideas, orally rehearsing sentences, and then carefully recording them on paper. They will focus on using nouns and verbs to clearly express actions and ideas, adding adjectives to make their writing more vivid, and extending sentences using and to create more detailed descriptions. Children will also explore punctuation in a meaningful context, including full stops, capital letters, question marks, and exclamation marks, making their writing more exciting and expressive.

This unit builds on children’s existing transcriptional skills, such as letter formation, spacing, and spelling of familiar words, helping them apply these foundational skills in a purposeful way. By the end of the unit, children will have the confidence to create a short, sequenced narrative that captures the excitement of Wombat’s walkabout, showcasing both their imaginative thinking and growing writing abilities.

By the end of the unit, children will be able to:

• Use nouns and verbs to describe characters, actions, and settings.
• Include adjectives to describe nouns.
• Extend sentences using and.
• Apply punctuation accurately, including full stops, capital letters, question marks, and exclamation marks.
• Demonstrate basic transcriptional skills such as neat letter formation, spacing, and spelling known words.

Expected Writing Outcome Example:

Wombat walks in the hot, dry bush and sees a kangaroo. The kangaroo hops fast! Wombat looks around. What is that noise? He hears a kookaburra laughing. Wombat runs home and tells his friends.

Place Value (within 50)

Length and Height

Mass and Volume

Comparing and grouping animals based on similarities and differences in their characteristics, physical features and diets.

Unit Outcomes

Pupils who are secure will be able to:

• Name and describe the physical features of a range of animals.
• Sort animals into groups based on their similarities and differences.
• Identify characteristics specific to mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish.
• Recall the diets of carnivores, herbivores and omnivores.

When working scientifically, pupils who are secure will be able to:

• Use a non-fiction text to find out about specific animals’ diets.
• Recognise that there are different ways to gather data.
• Record data in a block graph and use this to answer questions.
• Recognise what the scientist Jane Goodall was known for.
• Recall some of Jane Goodall’s key findings.

Children learn to identify and locate the four UK countries, recognise their own country and describe locations using basic compass directions. They also measure different types of weather, using symbols used in weather forecasts, describe seasonal changes and suggest appropriate clothing and activities for each season.

Unit Outcomes

Pupils who are secure will be able to:

• Name and locate the four countries on a map of the UK.
• Identify the country they live in.
• Identify the four seasons and the current season and describe some seasonal changes.
• Identify the four compass directions.
• Identify that the arrow on a compass always shows north.
• Use the compass directions to describe the location of features.
• Observe and describe daily weather patterns.
• Suggest appropriate clothing and activities for each season.

This unit focuses on developing pupils' ability to express opinions about art, use creative techniques like wool wrapping and weaving, and understand the work of artists like Cecilia Vicuña. It emphasises skills such as measuring, choosing materials, and resilience in artistic creation, catering to children's creative and cognitive development. Use this unit hub to inform your medium-term plan and to navigate to related resources.

Unit Outcomes

Pupils who are secure will be able to:

• Give an opinion about whether an activity counts as ‘art’.
• Listen attentively to a visitor describing their creative interests.
• Draw and talk about a remembered experience of making something creative.
• Independently choose and measure lengths of wool and join wool sections together.
• Adjust their wrapping technique if something doesn’t work well.
• Show that they are selecting colours thoughtfully.
• Be open to trying out a new skill.
• Show that they are choosing materials based on colour, thickness and flexibility.
• Show resilience and keep going when things don’t go right the first time.
• Join in with looking for key features of Cecilia Vicuña’s work (knots, plaits, weaving etc).
• Weave with paper, achieving a mostly accurate pattern of alternating strips.
• Describe their own weaving and compare it to Vicuna’s artwork.
• Attach things securely to their box loom.
• Remember the process needed for weaving and attach some elements in this way.
• Discuss the choices they make and what they like about their finished work.

Through fairytales, children are introduced to the concept of sound patterns (rhythms). They explore clapping along to repeated words and phrases, creating rhythmic patterns to tell a familiar fairytale.

Unit Outcomes

Pupils who are secure will be able to:

• Chant in time with others.
• Make changes to the dynamics (volume) of their voice to represent a character.
• Respond to hand signals when playing an instrument.
• Choose a suitable sound to represent a point in the story.
• Read simple rhythmic patterns comprising one beat sounds and one beat rests.
• Clap or play a rhythmic pattern along with spoken words.
• Play given sound patterns in time with the pulse.
• Follow instructions during a performance.
• Join in with repeated phrases using a character voice.

Unit outcomes

Pupils who are secure will be able to:

• Know a number of adults in school.
• Know that they should speak to an adult if they are ever worried or feel uncomfortable about another adult.
• Understand ways to keep safe and not get lost and know the steps to take if they do get lost.
• Know the number for the emergency services and their own address.
• Understand that some types of physical contact are never acceptable.
• Know what can go into or onto the body and when they should check with an adult.
• Understand that there are hazards in houses and know how to avoid them.
• Understand and name jobs that people do to help keep us safe.

Exploring programming by giving clear instructions to a Bee-Bot and explaining how it works.

Unit outcomes

Pupils who are secure will be able to:

• Write instructions for a person to follow.
• Carry out instructions written for a person to follow.
• Explain what each Bee-Bot button does.
• Create and test a short set of instructions.
• Check instructions and spot errors.
• Test instructions to check for further errors.
• Program a Bee-Bot using logical instructions.
• Identify and correct mistakes in a sequence when the Bee-Bot does not behave as expected

This term children will be developing their PE skills and knowledge in Gymnastics and Dance.