Title: George and the Dragon by Chris Wormell

Grade level: 3rd – 4th 
Topic: Dragons, Fear 
Time: 3 lessons 

Short description

George and the Dragon by Chris Wormell explores the topic of being fierce while at the same time holding a secret. In its encounter with George the mouse, the dragon reveals his secret and the mouse saves the village from the evil dragon. The lesson takes you through pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading activities. The pictures and writing provide opportunities for descriptive writing along with learning every-day vocabulary. The pupils will work on guessing the meaning of words using the language skills from the languages they know. 

Competence Aims in LK20

Competency aims (year 4):

  • find words that are common to English and other languages with which the pupil is familiar
  • listen to, read and talk about the content of simple texts, including picture books
  • read and experiment with writing familiar words, phrases, and simple sentences
  • learn words and acquire cultural knowledge through English-language literature for children

English core elements

Language Learning

By comparing and contrasting languages, pupils identify connections between English and other languages the pupils know.

Working with texts in English

Reflecting on the pictures in this book can lead to an understanding of different traditions and ways of living.

Interdisciplinary topic

Health and Life Skills

Discussion of fear and how we may deal with fear can aid in developing pupils’ ability to express their own feelings and support their personal identity.

Teaching Objectives

The pupil shall be able to

  • compare words in English and any languages they know, guessing the meaning
  • understand and use common English words
  • discuss fears found in the book and fears others might have
  • identify items found in the pictures that are similar to and different from items found in their own houses.

Resources

Preparations

  1. The teacher should practice reading the story with dramatic involvement and decide how to use the pictures and which items to bring along to visualize. The teacher may use the YouTube reading by Michael Lambourne (YouTube-lenke) for help with pronunciation and intonation.
  2. Gather items from the story: a toy dragon, a castle, a mouse, cheese, teacup, a tea bag and sugar lumps.
  3. Print out Appendix 1- vocabulary activity- for groups of 3-4.
  4. Print out coloring picture of dragon (se ressurser)
  5. Create an anticipation guide (Leseforventninger - se ressurser)

Plan of Lessons

Lesson 1 - Pre-reading - Setting the scene

Set the mood and introduce the topic and book by playing some dramatic music. Free music can be found on Soundcloud.

In this step, the idea is to spark the imagination, so an acceptance of different languages is important. If you know the words, you can repeat what the pupils say in English and even write them on the board, giving the pupils an opportunity to hear and see the language. However, the focus is not vocabulary building in this activity but rather activating their pre-knowledge.

  • What type of creature does the music reflect? 
    Ask pupils to act out their imaginative creature. 
    What size is it? 
    What kind of personality does the creature have? 
    Show the pupils one or two pictures of the dragon from the book. 
    Create an oral anticipation guide by asking the pupils to agree or not with a show of thumbs up or down to the following questions (You may need to visually show unknown vocabulary words by drawing or by acting out):
    • Dragons are kind.
    • Dragons live in caves.
    • Dragons like to scare people.
    • Dragons are never afraid.
    • Dragons can have secrets.

To appeal to pupils who have a larger vocabulary, you may also ask more open questions, for example: What can dragons do? Try to elicit the answers in English but allow for the pupils to activate all language resources, including showing their answers with their bodies. When pupils give their answers in another language, discuss the similarities to and differences to the English word. You may want to write important words in English on the chalkboard, a large sheet of paper or in a shared OneNote document.

The pupils can work in pairs with pre-reading vocabulary words, phrases, and collocations (words that commonly are found together). Hand out activity worksheet (Vedlegg 1). The pupils work in pairs or small groups to translate the vocabulary, using all language resources, appendix 1 (Vedlegg 1). 

You may make a competition by limiting the time, awarding points for translations that show an understanding of the vocabulary in one or several languages. Be sure to give extra points for good guessing strategies. Students can use other students, teachers, computers, dictionaries, or phones as possible alternative resources for finding the meaning of the vocabulary.

Lesson 2 - Reading

1st reading Reading, experiencing, and understanding the story.

  • Use of visuals: pictures, toys, dragon, mouse, lumps of sugar

The pictures in the book are colourful and large and illustrate the story well which can be used actively while reading. Sitting in a circle, the teacher can activate the vocabulary that was practiced earlier. Show the pictures as you read the story. Stop and pause and ask the pupils to predict what happens next. Use the pictures to predict.

If possible, bring along a toy dragon and a toy mouse.

Bring along items like tea bags, biscuits, lumps of sugar to show at the proper places in the story.

  • To support working with the interdisciplinary topic, Health and Life Skills, ask questions that help the students to appreciate and experience the story from their own perspectives and perspectives of others. What surprised the pupils in the story? What did they find amusing? Anything they found sad or confusing?
  • Do you know anyone who is afraid of a mouse? Are you afraid of mice? What might the mouse be afraid of?

2nd reading - Active listening- working with vocabulary.

  • Read the story again. This time give each pupil one or two words to listen for while you read. Use the words that have been practiced before and words that appear several times in the text. When the pupils hear their word, they stand up. Pair any pupil who needs extra support with a more advanced English learner.
  • In small groups, ask the pupils to use their words in sentences, using examples either from the book or sentences they create on their own. How might they act out these sentences?

Lesson 3 Post-reading activities

  • Discuss how the adjectives, repetition, and descriptions build up the tension of a story. Do the pupils know of any other story that uses these techniques?
  • Using the shades of meaning adjectives (Appendix 2), ask pupils to order the adjectives from weakest to strongest. The suggested answers should be discussed.
  • Sing the song “Puff the Magic Dragon” which shows a different kind of dragon.
    You find the lyrics on LyricsFreak.
    To learn more about the song, check out Wikipedia
  • Cloze test to work with the vocabulary: miserable, cold, secret, dark, smash down, next door, mighty, draughty, popped, fly, fast, terrified, lumps of sugar, burn, hole, fierce. See Appendix 4
  • You may want to discuss the parts of a good story: Setting, Characters, Conflict and Resolution. In a good story, the writer uses lots of description (adjectives etc.) and has a conflict of some kind that is often resolved at the end.
  • Gather a bank of adjectives for the different items in a dragon story: 
    • Blood: trickling, dripping, sputtering, splashing, spurting
    • Fire: angry, hot monstrous, fierce, terrifying, licking, burning
    • Clouds: fluffy, white, soft, cady-floss
    • Mountains: snow-tipped, sharp, jagged.
  • Encourage pupils to categorize the adjectives into different shades of meaning- strong to weak or use the following example for possible words to use in their stories: Appendix 2
  • Creating and describing own dragons and creatures or writing their own dragon stories: 
    Find several pictures of dragons or allow them to draw their own. Ask them to colour their dragon. You can add to the language experience by naming different parts of the creature, using all the languages found in the classroom. This vocabulary can be common for all pictures, for example eyes, mouth, teeth. 
    Under each picture, the pupils can write a short description or a story about the dragon. Use the words from the adjective activity or collect words from the class, displaying them on a large sheet of paper or on the blackboard. 
    The vocabulary worked on in the pre-reading activity also contains some common words associated with dragons: blast, breath, flick, tail, wing, burn down, smash. To support reluctant writers, you may want to use a writing frame. See Appendix 3.
  • The pupils may want to write their descriptions on the computer using either Word, Book creator or Storyjumper.
  • Ask the pupils to read out aloud their texts to the class or in small groups. What words have the authors used to make the descriptions/stories more interesting?

Debriefing and Evaluation

Discussion of how adjectives and descriptions build up the tension of a story. Make pupils reflect on their own use of adjectives.
Make pupils reflect and talk about what makes a story interesting and exciting. 

Follow-up

Make a poster of different types of dragons with information about their origin.

Read other stories with dragons such as Robert N. Munsch The Paper Bag Princess (a funny, revolting fairy tale)

Developed by

Anna Birketveit, senior lecturer, Høgskolen i Bergen

Revised by Gini Lockhart-Pedersen © Fremmedspråksenteret

Publisert 19. mai 2021 14:38 - Sist endret 18. sep. 2026 10:26
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