I Ate Sunshine For Breakfast

Why choose this book?
This beautifully illustrated book combines fascinating facts about plants with practical plant DIY projects. It was chosen for Year 4 as it will build upon the learning from the Year 3 science programme of study and develop a deepening interest and understanding of how plants shape our world and how humans have harnessed the power of plants in so many ways. The book combines distinctive illustrations with well-written text. Michael Holland uses scientific language whilst retaining an appealing and accessible tone, making this a wonderful non-fiction book to explore with children. This book is packed full of fascinating information, so we don’t suggest that you read the entire book to teach the sequence. However, we recommend that you make sure that copies are available for children to revisit the pages you have read together and explore pages that interest them, independently.
This book could be revisited in year 5 as it presents opportunities for reinforcing science content for this year group.
Text potential
This diagram gives an overview of the potential for teaching offered in this text. If you teach the entire sequence, you will cover these aspects. We advise teachers to produce their own text potential diagrams as this helps them to get to know the books well. Our Getting Started with Take One Book course for new schools has a module about Text Potential.
Links to National Curriculum in England
Living things and their habitats
Pupils should be taught to:
- recognise that living things can be grouped in a variety of ways
- explore and use classification keys to help group, identify and name a variety of living things in their local and wider environment
- recognise that environments can change and that this can sometimes pose dangers to living things
Curriculum connections
- Science
- plants
I Ate Sunshine for Breakfast:Class Set
Buy from Best Books for SchoolsI Ate Sunshine for Breakfast:Half Class Set
Buy from Best Books for SchoolsLessons for this book
Our lessons are organised as meaningful chunks of learning. Most of them will fit a standard 45 minute to 60 minute session. However, some of them are shorter and others will run for a series of linked sessions. It is anticipated that you will not teach all the lessons. Select those that suit the needs of your class and add them to your personalised plans.
Download the full scheme of work
Before Reading
Hook
Let’s Get Growing
Sowing seeds to grow food in recycled objects
Orientation
Help the Budding Botanist!
Discovering the skills of a botanist whilst developing plant vocabulary.
Connecting Plants and Humans
Exploring children's knowledge of the connections between plants and humans.
During Reading
First Encounters
Celebrating Connections between Image and Text
Initial exploration of the Images and Text.
Required reading: Front Cover, Front Endpaper, Back Cover
How to Read this Book
Understanding the conventions that help us read this book.
Required reading: Pages 9-13
Diving into Diagrams
Understanding diagrams that explain processes.
Required reading: 14, 15, 16, 17, 22, 23, 24
Designing a Tropical Leaf
Using a kinaesthetic approach to learn new vocabulary.
Required reading: 50 and 51
Digging Deeper
Noun-Maker Verb-Creator
Exploring how to create compound expressions by connecting verbs and nouns.
Required reading: 45, 49, 60, 68, 73
Now That’s a ‘Peculiar’ Word
Understanding the use of quotation marks to highlight a word being used peculiarly.
Required reading: 25, 26, 38
How to be concise and precise
Learning ways to be concise when writing instructions.
Required reading: 26 and 27
Evaluating Illustrations
Evaluating the effectiveness of illustrations
Required reading: 46, 47, 112, 113
After Reading
Review and Reflect
Composing Nature’s Tune
Using reading to prompt exploration and experimentation.
Required reading: 88, 89, 90 and 91
Plant Awards
Selecting the plants that interested us the most.
Wider Learning Opportunities
DIY Activity
Learning more about plants through practical activities.