This week in Literacy we were looking at instructional writing. We kicked off the week, with a lesson idea from Tom Barrett – You are the instructions, this is another great idea from Tom and a brilliant lesson, which the children and I really enjoyed. It takes the same instructions but in 3 formats to evaluate them and making the children realise the importance of the visual element. The lesson even ended with a ‘fold-off’ a great hour.

We moved on to look at instructions and write our own, for this we turned to games and Ikea!  Ikea because even as adults – yes they have the visual elements that we had noticed from the previous lesson – they do not have the text to go with it – so people encounter problems. So we discussed if visuals always worked.  We also looked at instructions from board games as well as computer games.  Looking at their general features as well as how easy they were to understand, what made some easier to follow than others.

What was interesting in the discussion was that it made the children realise the importance of different learning styles, as some of them clearly preferred certain instructions styles whereas others differed- which took the lesson – for a little while off in a different direction, to the one that I had ‘planned’ anyway.  I like this though – as it means that the children are engaged and discussing what the lesson means to them, and it really meant that the children focused on the different styles of learning and how they could engage with this when it came to writing their own instructions.

This is what they then moved on to – for a ‘game’ of their choice. It was another good week for them and one that focused them on the language involved.

Next week – story writing – looking at Bowser’s castle as setting – thanks to @primarypete_ for idea!