KS: Lower KS2
Year Group: Year 3
Literary Theme: Overcoming Adversity
Author(s): Beverley Naidoo
This is a three-session spelling seed for the book Cinderella of the Nile by Beverley Naidoo. Below is the coverage from Appendix 1 of the National Curriculum 2014.
Spelling Seeds have been designed to complement Writing Roots by providing weekly, contextualised sequences of sessions for the teaching of spelling that include open-ended investigations and opportunities to practise and apply within meaningful and purposeful contexts, linked (where relevant) to other areas of the curriculum and a suggestion of how to extend the investigation into home learning.
There is a Spelling Seed session for every week of the associated Writing Root.
different, difficult, February, heard, island, often, straight
The /i/sound spelt y elsewhere than at the end of a word
Homophones and near homophones
A Writing Root is available for Cinderella of the Nile.
Short news report, diary entry, character description, advert
Own version traditional tale
15 sessions, 3 weeks
This three-week Writing Root begins with the discovery of a bottle that contains a map and a message. After interrogating the scenario presented and writing a short news report using the present perfect tense, the children then share the first part of Cinderella of the Nile. They develop skills of inference before exploring the author’s use of literary language and the effect that this has on the reader. Suffix fixers are used to investigate abstract nouns which are then used to create an emotions graph before being woven in to a diary entry in role that also draws upon literary language from a previous session. Once the story has been read, the children sort statements about traditional Cinderella tales and statements about this version onto a Venn diagram and then go on to devise their own version of a Cinderella story complete with fable!
In this earliest-known version of Cinderella, a rosy-cheeked girl called Rhodopis is abducted by bandits from her home in Greece and enslaved in Egypt. Along the way she becomes friends with the storyteller Aesop and a host of playful animals. Her master gives her a pair of beautiful rose-red slippers, making three other servants jealous. But when Horus, the falcon, sweeps in to steal her slipper, Rhodopis has little idea that this act will lead her to the King of Egypt...
Re-told by award winning and influential children’s author Beverley Naidoo, this version of Cinderella supports learning around traditional tales. With clear links to ancient Greece and ancient Egypt, children will discover how one story can have many iterations around the world and throughout history. Alongside historical themes, the book could be used as a platform for discussions around human rights, enslavement and justice.
Traditional tales, ancient Egypt, Aesop, justice, human rights
Date written: November 2020
View Cinderella of the Nile Writing RootA Home Learning Branch is available for Cinderella of the Nile.
This is a Home Learning Branch for Cinderella of the Nile. These branches are designed to support home learners to access literature-based learning using a selection of books we love from Writing Roots. They include purposeful writing suggestions, links to the wider curriculum so that texts can be used across other subjects, key questions as well as spelling or phonics investigations.
View Cinderella of the Nile Home Learning Branch
