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Session 11 How to train your dragon - Walliston Primary Year 5/6 with Claire Davenhall and Nathan Bushby

by Claire,

Session 11

DATE 6.8.25

90-minute session in the classroom:

Warm Up

I took in my collection of How to Train Your Dragon, and we discussed the names of all the dragons. There was one boy in the class who could recall them all (Dexter). I also bought a cheat sheet, but it didn't have all the dragons on it! They had to use their imagination and intuition to play a game called ‘Guess the Dragon.’ Working in pairs, student choose a dragon from the box and offer it to their partner, who is sitting wearing a blind fold. They have to feel all the cool details of the dragon to work out which dragon they had.. When they are guessed, they can swap roles. Most of the students had worked out that they all had special features, shooting out fire, another screamed death, some had perfect balancing or blew smoke, they could flap their wings and light up their chests… they were all unique and different.

Main Activity (one photo)

After w quick demo, students developed their dragons in this lesson based on the 3 designs they came up with last week. It needs to be detailed and awesome with cool features.. They can think about How to Train Your Dragon as inspiration. They all took a table pet dragon for inspiration.
They need to produce a silhouette of their dragon and test it out in the shadow box theatre. Next week they will be crafting and improving their dragon once they are done with a character analysis and have developed a storyboard.. Then they will know which parts they need to move.

Reflection with the students (one photo)

They coloured in the Great Wave with the creative colours we used in today's session.

Paste your photo here. After the session: Planning with the Teacher

(refer back to your original Term Plan document, discuss successes, explore challenges and make changes.)

Most students completed their dragon, and some did a few rocks as an extension. One girl said she couldn't draw a dragon, so I suggested she draw around her hand and turn that into a dragon it looked amazing, and he was very pleased!

Working with students

(what is emerging, what is engaging them/not, what’s making them curious.)

They are all engaged with their ideas.

Ideas moving forward

(ideas for next session, future lessons, discussed with teacher, do you need the teacher to do anything before you return.)

We need a character analysis sheet and a storyboard worksheet to develop a story that presents a new myth or legend. They need to think of names, locations and the moral at the end of the story.. Is it based on fact or fiction or a little bit of both… What do they think movie producers do to get their ideas packed down?

Resources

(do you need anything, who will source it?)

Nathan, do you have any good worksheets for character analysis or storyboards or examples?