Newspaper Lesson

An Observed Lesson

One of my favourite lessons that I’ve done incorporates a lot of child independent work and a lot of good resources (if I do say so myself!).

Resources for this lesson:

	Blank News Paper Writing Frame Print this out A3 sized and it will be your display final piece of work. Children can stick on photos they take into the boxes and editors can write the stories. Download here.
	Press Badges Each child will have a job and a press badge to go with their job. The badges are all colour coded so that you know which child is in each group. Also helps the children to remember! Download here.
	Interview Sheets These interview sheets are for your lower attainers. The children write the name of the person they are interviewing and then draw a picture of that person. Download here.
	Reporters Sheets These are for your middle and higher attainers. They can write some notes about the news stories they see, ready to report them back to their editors. Download here.
	Newspaper Word Banks For those groups who are working independently in the classroom, children can write their own news stories in the classroom in their child independent time. Download here.
	Blank Stories for Independent For those groups who are working independently in the classroom, children can write their own news stories in the classroom in their child independent time. Download here.

You could also put out some My News templates from Twinkl, turn your Role Play area into a news room for independent work and leave some fine motor skill activities out for the children.

Lesson Plan:

What’s Covered:

• Differentiation
  There are different activities for the different children. The G&T or highest attainers in your class are the editors and are responsible for writing the display news paper. The middle attainers are given writing activities that are at their level. The lower attainers have one word writing activities and your SEN children can be the paparazzi.
  
• ICT
  Using the digital cameras for the paparazzi. You could even have your editors type the news papers on the computer, or have a free laptop/computer activity where the children are writing news papers.
  
• Speaking and listening
  The children will be discussing the stories for their news papers and deciding what their two main stories will be
  
• Writing
  Children will write notes and newspapers
  
• Personal, Social and Emotional Development
  Children will be asked to work as a team, take turns and help each other with their news paper.
  
• Lots of child initiated
  The children will be taking the lead a lot in this lesson, all you are doing is planting the seeds, the children will decide everything else, lead by their editors-in-chief.

Planning

For this lesson to work really well, the groups need to be mixed ability. Each attainment level has a different job.

Editor-in-chief -	The highest attainer/gifted and talented
Reporters -	higher attainers will write sentences middle attainers can write key words
Interviewers -	lower attainers can write names or key words
Paparazzi -	lower attainers/SEN chn use the classroom digital cameras to take photos to appear on the newspaper

Before the lesson, sort the children into their groups. There are four groups in the badges so you would have between 7/8 children in each group for a class of 30.

First Lesson – Planning the Paper

Introduction

In this first lesson, introduce news papers. The children may have seen their parents reading the paper before. Talk about the purpose of a newspaper, do you think we could write one?

What could we write about?

We need to find some stories! But we need to be in our groups before we can go out and find some stories.

Groups

Split the children into their groups and then take them out to look for stories. My children spotted a hoop in a tree and a lost football, they even spotted the head asleep in his office! These were our top stories.

(While the groups are out gathering ideas, the rest of the children can be getting on with independent activities in the classroom, watched by the Learning Through Play Manager.)

Brain Storming

When they come back into the classroom, they’re ready to start putting some ideas down on their idea sheets. I used large sheets of sugar paper for this, and the editors did all the writing supported by the teacher and the assistant teacher.

Children should also brainstorm their newspaper names at this point.

Plenary

Show the children the brainstorms. Discuss the ideas, what could they add or change? Who has got a really good idea? Could you use this in your newspaper? Allow the children to make changes if they’d like to.

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