KS: Lower KS2
Year Group: Year 3
Literary Theme: Overcoming Adversity
Author(s): Sydney Smith
This is a Vocabulary Vine for Small in the City by Sydney Smith
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 Small in the City.
Setting descriptions, poems, diary entries, dialogue, letters of advice, lost posters
Extended narrative from an alternative point of view
15 sessions, 3 weeks
This is a three-week Writing Root for Small in the City by Sydney Smith. The sequence of learning begins with children getting in role as country and city cats. They will debate which is better for cats to live in, the countryside or the city. Then go on to develop their descriptive writing, using the gorgeous urban illustrations by Sydney Smith which will culminate in them writing and performing a poem. Children will continue to make inferences and predictions about the story, writing a letter of advice to the main character and a diary entry in role before discussing the final twist in the story. Children will finish by retelling the events in the narrative but from an alternative point of view. This will be their extended outcome which they will edit and publish.
I know what it's like to be small in the city...
Being small can be overwhelming in a city. People don't see you. The loud sounds of the sirens and cyclists can be scary. And the streets are so busy it can make your brain feel like there's too much stuff in it. But if you know where to find good hiding places, warm dryer vents that blow out hot steam that smells like summer, music to listen to or friends to say hi to, there can be comfort in the city, too.
We follow our little protagonist, who knows all about what its like to be small in the city, as he gives his best advice for surviving there. As we turn the pages, Sydney Smith's masterful storytelling allows us to glimpse exactly who this advice is for, leading us to a powerful, heart-rending realization...
This picture book by award-winning author-illustrator Sydney Smith shows children that sometimes we can all feel a little overwhelmed. Told as much through the monochrome illustrations (which children could replicate in their own artwork) as the words on the page, the story provides gentle reassurances for how to survive when we experience those moments of feeling small. However, the revelation on the last page of the book is where most of the discussion will start!
Urban environment, loneliness, overcoming adversity, survival, coping with emotions, friendship
Date written: September 2022
View Small in the City Writing RootA Spelling Seed is available for Small in the City.
This is a three-session spelling seed for the book Small in the City by Sydney Smith. 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.
promise, actually, arrive, believe, minute, opposite, probably
The suffix -ly
More prefixes (ir-, il,- im-, in-)
View Small in the City Spelling Seed
