This teaching pack is bursting with ideas for teaching English at KS1 and KS2 while celebrating Michael Bond’s wonderful Paddington Bear books.

There are four lessons plans, each of which is accompanied by a selection of activity sheets. These can be used individually, or combined as part of a whole-school project.

There are ideas, too, on how your school can join together and use the Paddington Bear books as the inspiration for celebrating literacy and reading for pleasure.

Using the pack will develop writing, grammar, and story planning.

What’s inside the Paddington Bear resource pack?

• Lesson 1 (Reception and Year 1)
  Explore the character of Paddington through talk and drama. Use the activity sheets to write about Paddington and start planning his next adventure.
• Lesson 2 (Year 1 and Year 2)
  This English lesson gives children a chance to write in character as Paddington. They’ll send a postcard home to Aunt Lucy telling her all about life in London. Built around rich discussion and an engaging story, the lesson helps children think about a character’s perspective within a story. Children will also have the opportunity to learn about using adjectives to add description to their writing and help their reader to picture the scene.
• Lesson 3 (Year 3 and Year 4)
  Children will have the opportunity to learn about story structure. Then they will plan and write their own stories. They’ll devise a new adventure for Paddington based on some collaborative drama work. They will also have the chance to learn about how verbs can be used to add detail and help the reader understand what is happening in a story.
• Lesson 4 (Year 5 and Year 6)
  Children will use the rich and wonderful text A Bear Called Paddington to think carefully about different characters and their differing points of view on the events in a story. They will consider how vocabulary choice and sentence structure can capture a character’s voice. They will also carry out some extended writing that draws on what they have learnt.

Activity sheets:

1. Writing activity – describe Paddington and what is special about him
2. Writing activity – children share their ideas about Paddington
3. Drawing / writing activity – children draw and label Paddington’s next adventure
4. Writing activity – children write a postcard from Paddington to his Aunt Lucy
5. Grammar activity – how many amazing adjectives can children come up with?
6. Writing activity – children write a letter from Paddington telling his Aunt Lucy all about life with the Browns in London.
7. Grammar activity – children collect the exciting adjectives they hear during the week.
8. Planning activity – use the story planning tool to decide Paddington’s next adventure.
9. Planning activity – collect ideas for character, setting, dialogue, events and more.
10. Grammar activity – add adverbs to these sentences about Paddington.
11. Writing activity – write a newspaper story for the Portabello post.
12. Comprehension activity – what do we know about the character of Mr Curry?
13. Comprehension activity – compare and contrast the perspectives of Mr Curry and Mr Brown.
14. Writing activity – write a diary entry for Paddington.
15. Planning activity – create a Paddington Bear comic strip.

Browse more creative ideas for National Writing Day and World Book Day.

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