The Great Kapok Tree

In Year 3 our literacy lessons have been based on the amazing book ‘The Great Kapok Tree’. We have continued to focus on a rich text that drives the learning, to inspire a love for reading and a purpose for writing. The children thoroughly enjoyed reading this book which also linked nicely to our humanities topic ‘Rainforests’, science topic ‘Plants’ and Greening the Purple!

It is a fantastic picture book with amazing illustrations to show the importance of saving the rainforests. The writing style was simple but touching which helped to raise our children’s awareness to the importance of preserving nature.

The children loved reading the animals’ point of view and we enjoyed adding in some drama sessions that focused on role play. They also wrote terrific descriptive poems about the rainforest including similes and onomatopoeia. The beautiful illustrations really made them feel for the animals and the habitat and it opened their eyes to how all living things are dependent on each other. We also learned a lot of new animals, and we loved looking at the world map to find out about other rainforests and where they are located. It was a fabulous blend of a fictional story with nonfiction information. We loved transforming our classrooms into rainforests!