Title of Activity: ‘The Ant and the Elephant’

Resources:
Venn worksheet
PowerPoint
‘The Ant and the Elephant’ story (online)
Learning aims: Learning objectives:
To examine character traits and recognise positive Group adjectives using a Venn diagram
characteristics Write a profile of a character from literature
Curriculum References:
En1: 2a,b,c. 3. // En2: 3a. 6a,c,d. // En3: 1a,f. // PSHE: 1a,b. 4e.

Introducing the activity: (5 min)

Read story and elicit the moral
Starter Activity: (10 min)
Venn diagram using adjectives to describe the two characters
Show example Venn diagram (slide 2) and show how words that relate to individual characters go in separate areas,
and words that relate to both characters go in the overlap.
Children complete their own Venn diagram using provided worksheet.

Main Activity:
Character profiles (30 min)
In this activity children will write a ‘profile’ about their chosen character – giving details and writing a description about
that character.
In ‘The Ant and the Elephant’ the ant was a small animal who was very brave and loyal.
Small but brave
1. Lead a short discussion about animals/characters from literature (and movies) who are small but brave.
2. In small groups children could try and come up with as many as possible - For example: Reepicheep, The
Borrowers, the mouse from ‘The Gruffalo’, the boy from ‘Up’, David from ‘David and Goliath’, the Hobbits.
3. Think about why the bravest characters are sometimes also the smallest and weakest
Loyal
1. Discuss characters that were a true friend and stood up for people
2. How many can they think of? E.g.: Samwise from ‘Lord of the Rings’. Ron from ‘Harry Potter’.
3. Why is important to be loyal?

Each child chooses a character from the previous discussions – either a small and brave, or a loyal character.
(For obvious reasons it should be a character they know a lot about).
In their profile they should include the following:
• Key information (name, age, personal details etc)
• What story/film they appear in
• A few other characters from that film/story
• A description about their personality, perhaps including a recount of a particular event in the story where
they demonstrated being brave or loyal

Extension activity – write short story with your chosen character

Differentiation:
All: Create character profile
Some: Create character profile and write a short story featuring that character
Concluding the Session: (5 min)
Choose volunteers from the class to read their description of their chosen character without giving away who it is.
The class then have to try and guess the identity of the literary character.