Greta and the Giants – KS1/LKS2

Greta and the Giants

This inspiring picture book retells the story of Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greta Thunberg – the Swedish teenager who has led a global movement to raise awareness about the world’s climate crisis – using allegory to make this important topic accessible to young children.

Greta is a little girl who lives in a beautiful forest threatened by Giants.

When the Giants first came to the forest, they chopped down trees to make houses. Then they chopped down more trees and made even bigger homes. The houses grew into towns and the towns grew into cities, until now there is hardly any forest left. Greta knows she has to help the animals who live in the forest, but how? Luckily, Greta has an idea…

A section at the back explains that, in reality, the fight against the ‘giants’ isn’t over and explains how you can help Greta in her fight.

Main Focus: Front Cover Discussion

We have covered some fantastic questions using the front cover of the book. We have also written teaching points (Tps) for you to discuss more with your class.

We have left out the general questions teachers would ask, because you know them all, to delve into deeper messages, representations and points.

Main Focus: Blurb

In this activity, your class will read the blurb of the story and…

1. Draw a forest before the Giants arrived and then a city afterwards.
2. Write adjectives to describe the forest and the city for comparative purposes.

This activity gives children a visual of the point Greta is trying to make in the book. 

Main Focus: Homophones

In this resource, your class will be looking at homophones.

Homophones are two or more words having the same pronunciation but different meanings, origins, or spelling, for example new and knew.

In this resource your class will cover:

wear | were

tail | tale

there | their

where | wear

our | are

to | two | too

your | you’re

as well as think of their own homophones.

Main Focus: Persuasive Placards

This resource focuses on placards and your class are challenged to create persuasive placards to either stop the Giants building cities or encouraging them to help rebuild the forest.

We have also included two more resources that show picture sources of Greta Thunberg’s placard ‘Skolstrejk för klimatet’ and other climate change posters for your class to look at and discuss with you and their peers.

Main Focus: Adjectives to Describe Characters

In this resource, your class will think of adjectives to describe Greta and the Giants.

Your Year 1 / Year 2 class will then choose their favourite word to describe Greta and the Giants and give a short explanation as to why they feel that particular word is best suited for the character.

Main Focus: Capital Letters and Full Stops

In this activity linked to Greta and the Giants, your class will add the capital letters and full stops into the passages or sentences.

We have differentiated this resource seven ways to focus on identifying where one sentence ends and another begins, right down to capital letters at the beginning of a sentence, for names, and full stop at the end.

Check out the resource to see if it suit your KS1 class.

Main Focus: Speech / Inverted Commas

In this activity, your class will be focusing on speech marks / inverted commas.

We have created a few different resources which help your class: identify speech, add in inverted commas and try to remember who was speaking when quotes are given.

Your class will finish off by remembering some information that Greta told the Giants to convince them to stop ruining the forest.

Main Focus: Story Sequencing

This resource for KS1 focuses on story sequencing. 

Your class will sequence the events linked to the story.

Depending on your class, it might be useful to cut out each  event then place them in order.

Main Focus: Comprehension

This is a comprehension linked to the whole Greta and the Giants book.

Your Year 1 / Year 2 class will answer the questions as best as they can based on their knowledge and understanding of the book.

We have differentiated this resource so have a look to see which would suit your class the best.

Main Focus: True or False

This is a true or false activity linked to the final pages of the book about Greta Thunberg.

It covers general information about global warming and climate change.

Main Focus: Fronted Adverbials

This resource includes a slight variation on the text for the purpose of the activity.

Your class will either identify the fronted adverbials in the passage for the first activity or add in some of the commonly known fronted adverbials in the second activity from a list.

Main Focus: Vocabulary Extension

This resource explores the vocabulary used in the book.

We have differentiated the resource a number of ways.

1. Your class will choose synonyms for each word from a list of 4/5 words.
2. As above but choices are reduced to 2 options.
3. Words and given context.
4. As above but less words.
5. Place the vocabulary into the context of the story.

Have a scroll through the resource to see if it suits your class.

Climate Change - General

This is a useful pack of resources and video clips about climate change brought to you by World Wildlife Federation. 

WWF

Some more fantastic resources linked to climate change, the impact on Earth, humans and animals.