KS: R & KS1
Year Group: Year 2
Literary Theme: Change & Relationships
Author(s): Jeanne Willis
This is a Vocabulary Vine for Tadpole's Promise by Jeanne Willis
A Vocabulary Vine is designed to be a sister resource to a Writing Root and Spelling Seed. It sits within our wider Teach Through a Text approach by explicitly identifying vocabulary from the book and providing additional opportunities for paired, small group and whole class experimentation with this vocabulary in context. Vocabulary Vines further complement spelling development too through exploration of the morphology (word structure) and etymology (origins) of words. They also provide oracy opportunities through a focus on talk tasks and on oral sentence construction. They are designed for short burst oral and vocabulary development.
A Writing Root is available for A Vocabulary Vine for Tadpole's Promise.
Simple explanations, speech bubbles, setting descriptions, thought bubbles
Own version narrative / extended explanation
15 sessions, 3 weeks
This is a three-week Writing Root for Tadpole’s Promise by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross. To begin with, children write their own promises on lily pads to float in their class pond and record a simple explanation of a process of change they are familiar with. Children go on to re-enact sections of the story and consider the thoughts of the characters at certain points. This is in preparation for them to plan and write their own version of the narrative using characters of their choice (who also meet a grizzly ending!). Using information from the text children also create an explanation text in leaflet form to outline the stages in the lifecycle of a frog. It may be useful to ensure other books about changes are available, e.g. Changes by Anthony Browne and, if possible, have tadpoles in or near the classroom to observe their changes.
Tadpole loves his rainbow friend, the caterpillar, and she tells him she loves everything about him. "Promise that you will never change," she says. But as the seasons pass and he matures, his legs grow, and then his arms - and what happens to his beautiful rainbow friend? As he sits on his lily pad, digesting a butterfly, Tadpole little realises that now he will never know! Follow the predictable changes of a tadpole and a caterpillar to their natural conclusion in this award winning picture book.
This lyrical tale tells the love story between a tadpole and a caterpillar. It has strong links to science and life cycles as well as being an allegory for how people and relationships inevitably change over time. There is certainly a cautionary note struck during the final twist of this tale. This text won the Nestle Smarties Book Prize Silver Award in 2003 as well as being longlisted for the Kate Greenaway Award. Jeanne Willis is an award-winning and prolific author and Tony Ross has illustrated many well-known books.
Life-cycles, habitats, species, explanations, relationships, change, science, animals and their habitats
Date written: July 2014 Updated: March 2021
View A Vocabulary Vine for Tadpole's Promise Writing RootA Home Learning Branch is available for A Vocabulary Vine for Tadpole's Promise.
This is a Home Learning Branch for Tadpole's Promise. 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 A Vocabulary Vine for Tadpole's Promise Home Learning Branch
