KS: R & KS1
Year Group: Year 1
Literary Theme: Similarities & Differences
Author(s): Emily Gravett
This is a three-session spelling seed for the book The Odd Egg by Emily Gravett. 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.
put, push, pull, full
Adding the endings -ing, -ed and -er where no change is needed to the root words
Division of words into syllables
The consonant digraph ng
Adjacent consonants
A Writing Root is available for The Odd Egg.
Short guide, thought bubbles, awards, letter, predictions, congratulations cards
Egg-spotter’s guide (non-fiction report)
15 sessions, 3 weeks
This is a three-week Writing Root using The Odd Egg by Emily Gravett. Within this Writing Root, children begin by identifying different types of eggs and guessing who they might belong to. Children then begin to read the text, meeting Duck and the other birds and connecting with the characters’ thoughts and emotions as they journey through the main events in the book. They write short guides for how to look after eggs, thought bubbles to capture how characters are feeling, awards to celebrate Duck’s egg, supportive letters of advice to Duck and congratulations cards to welcome the baby birds. The main outcome is a non-fiction ‘Egg Spotter’s Guide’ after researching different types of eggs from the book and making short videos about these. It would be particularly beneficial to cover this during the late spring or early summer term near to Easter and linking to themes of ‘new life’ or when learning about animals and their young.
All the birds have eggs to hatch. All except Duck. When Duck is delighted to find an egg of his own to look after: it's the most beautiful egg in the whole world! But all the other birds think it's a very odd egg indeed - and everyone's in for a big surprise when it finally hatches.
This charming story by award-winning illustrator and author Emily Gravett provides opportunities to talk about different family structures and adoption. Children will engage with a host of endearing animal characters to help them understand the themes woven throughout. Furthermore, links can be made with identifying and naming a variety of common animals including fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.
Eggs, families, adoption, parenthood, bullying, science, different family structures and family relationships
Date written: November 2015. Updated: December 2024
NB: This is an updated, 3 week version of the Writing Root for Beegu. If you would like the original 10 session Writing Root, please get in touch.
View The Odd Egg Writing RootA Home Learning Branch is available for The Odd Egg.
This is a Home Learning Branch for The Odd Egg. 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 The Odd Egg Home Learning Branch
KS: Lower KS2
Year Group: Year 3
