Who's Afraid of the Dark?
Who's Afraid of the Dark?
6 weeks
Science, English, DT
Thinking and Creativity
RATIONALE:
In response to a video message from the King in the book ‘The King Who Banned the Dark’, children will decide to design and make a tool for the King to help him at night so he is never in complete darkness. This will lead us to exploring the features of ‘light’ ‘dark’ and ‘shadows’ as we become scientists to properly help the King to understand there is nothing to be afraid of.
In English, we will study the main text, exploring the features of a story and also why the King might be afraid of the dark. Through this, we will explore themes of power and democracy eventually leading us to write our own stories with a similar theme. After this, we will write poetry to show how beautiful the night and dark can be. Alongside all of this, the children will be designing a light tool to solve the King’s problem which will be presented to him at the end of the project.
Towards the end of the project, we will be writing our own stories about banning 'something'... we have begun to explore the story and character in detail
Today we were learning about what LIGHT is. What is the difference between light and dark, does the king need to be scared of the dark?
We will be making night lights for the King so that he no longer has to be afraid when it is dark However, in the meantime, we have written a letter to him with our suggestions to help him while we design and make his night light.
If the King was not going to ban the dark, we would have to convince him. He tasked us to find the most reflective materials for people to wear out and about in the evenings and mornings as it is getting dark...
In English, we have been exploring how author's choose their language carefully to create atmosphere and effect. We have been thinking about how we might describe the dark room and how the boy might feel in there on his own.
We investigated the best material to make a blind to block the light for the King's bedroom. We learnt the difference between opaque, translucent and transparent
In preparation for writing our bedtime story for the king, we have been learning how to describe using similes, how to use direct speech and how to use subordinating conjunctions to create complex sentences
As the King had installed a huge artificial sun, we had to learn how to keep ourselves safe from the sun's UV rays!
