Kensuke's Kingdom Unit 1 Teaching Slides

In the first unit of the "Kensuke's Kingdom" teaching slides, pupils embark on a literary journey through the first two chapters of the book. They employ a 'word detective grid' to decipher the meanings of new and unfamiliar words they encounter, enhancing their vocabulary. The lesson plan encourages students to delve into the protagonist Michael's life before his adventures on the Peggy Sue, with a particular focus on his family dynamics and his father's role. An engaging activity called 'role on the wall' helps students explore Michael's father's character through his feelings, actions, speech, and the opinions of others. Furthermore, pupils are tasked with crafting powerful sentences, identifying fronted adverbials, and expanding noun phrases, as well as interpreting 'unusual phrases' found within the text. They also contemplate the significant impact of a redundancy letter on Michael's family and reflect on a personal choice of a luxury item they would bring on a voyage, similar to Michael's football given by his friend Eddie Dodds.

As the unit unfolds, students are prompted to consider Michael's perspective on his life before moving to the Peggy Sue, using his description of a 'regularity, a sameness' to express their own interpretations. They are guided to enhance their writing skills by expanding nouns, building sentences with various linguistic techniques, and examining the writer's use of figurative language such as similes, metaphors, and personification. The toolkit provided assists in constructing atmospheric settings, employing sensory details, effective language, and the 'power of three' to paint vivid pictures for the reader. Additionally, pupils are encouraged to empathise with Michael's mother's reaction to the Peggy Sue and to create similes that encapsulate both the positive and negative aspects of the journey described in chapter two. Finally, they are invited to draw parallels between Michael's home learning tasks on the ship and their own experiences during lockdown, by writing a log entry for a day they spent at home, mirroring Michael's ship's log entries.