The students have worked over a 2 week time frame to produce some stunning character descriptions! We used the unit plan outline in our favourite resource by Gail Loane.
In this she outlines how we start with a sentence about the character that is a physical description. One thing about how your character looks. This must be very specific and also use rich describing vocabulary.
We all closed our eyes and visualised our character, we discussed things they did, said, what made them the personality and influence in our lives.
Then we wrote a sentence about a behaviour of our character, how they walk, laugh, speak.. What makes them unique?
Then we wrote about one thing they love to do , are passionate about or successful at.
This was to build on making our character come alive!
Lastly was crafting the writing to publishing stage.
Some of the group had to start again a few times, reworking our sentences was hard.
Some of the students found this hard but I think you will agree all have experienced success! All will be revealed tomorrow! Watch this space!
Friday, 31 August 2012
Saturday, 11 August 2012
Friday, 10 August 2012
This weeks Poetry Winner!!!
This week Miss Sophie took out the chocolate bar prize for memorising and beautifully reciting our Mashed Potatoes on the Ceiling poem!
Congratulations Sophie! Persistance and self management were the secret to your success, we are very excited for you!
Congratulations Sophie! Persistance and self management were the secret to your success, we are very excited for you!
Sunday, 5 August 2012
Reworking Text
Today we tried something new! First we all chatted about our weekend... valuing the oral language opportunity to share our experiences.
Kane had some exciting language retelling his motorbike excursion at Oreti Beach.
Each child had something fun to share about their weekend adventures.
We revisited our poem Mashed Potatoes on the Ceiling from last week, due to illness we did not manage to memorise this poem so we are continuing on with this challenge this week!
Who will the winner be?
Then...
We shared our pet descriptions from last week, we wrote William's up and together we selected parts that had rich descriptive language and we edited some little joining words.
This made Williams description of Cooper more interesting for our audience!
Then we all re worked our beginning sentences about our pets.
This was hard for everyone!
But we persisted and all agreed that we had each improved our writing quality!
We discussed that real published authors get feedback all the time which means they have to rework their writing!
This was a great learning curve and one we will revisit as we go along our pathway to being real authors!
Kane had some exciting language retelling his motorbike excursion at Oreti Beach.
Each child had something fun to share about their weekend adventures.
We revisited our poem Mashed Potatoes on the Ceiling from last week, due to illness we did not manage to memorise this poem so we are continuing on with this challenge this week!
Who will the winner be?
Then...
We shared our pet descriptions from last week, we wrote William's up and together we selected parts that had rich descriptive language and we edited some little joining words.
This made Williams description of Cooper more interesting for our audience!
Then we all re worked our beginning sentences about our pets.
This was hard for everyone!
But we persisted and all agreed that we had each improved our writing quality!
We discussed that real published authors get feedback all the time which means they have to rework their writing!
This was a great learning curve and one we will revisit as we go along our pathway to being real authors!
Friday, 3 August 2012
Bluff Adventure Continued...
Woof! Woof! Went Jess
while we were coming up the driveway.
Jess quickly ran to the
gate. We had to guess who’s house we
were at and we were at Miss Sherlock’s house!
Then we went to Bluff
School and William went on the flying fox.
Shaana pushed William, he went up in the air and into the garden. Everybody laughed and we went to the shop and
got some ice cream. I had banana ice
cream with chocolate chips and it tasted yum.
Then we went back to
school and we went to the classroom and we went into the cloak bay. All ten of us sat down on the chairs and put
our hands on the table.
We had lots of fun!
By Casey
When we went out of the
drop off zone, Miss Campbell went TOOT! TOOT! TOOT! The window wipers went swish when we wanted
the blinkers on. At the Police Station
we saw the taser and we got to see the pistol.
But he didn’t shoot it.
Zoom, I went so fast on
the flying fox and I was scared but it was awesome. Kane fell off and William and Kane did a
double.
On the way back we got an
ice cream.
By Connor
Jess, Miss Sherlock’s dog
ran to Miss Sherlock and we got to pat the dog.
We went to the Bluff
Police Station and we saw a rifle and we got to see a pistol and a taser. The taser makes you paralysed.
Weow, Weow went the police
car and after that we went to Bluff School.
Some of the kids went on the flying fox.
William went really fast on the flying fox. He was so wild that he got muddy and after
that we to the fish and chip shop and got some ice cream.
Then we went to Marlene’s
house and got to see her dog and then we went to school.
By Tim
Swish went the window
wipers. I got some delicious ice cream. My flavour was chocolate and lime ice cream.
Wizz went William on the
flying fox. Then William went off
it. Miss Campbell and Miss Sherlock
bought fish and chips.
We went to Bluff School
and Bluff Police Station. Jordon showed
us a police car. We heard the siren and
the speaker.
We went up Bluff
Hill. It was freaky!
By Tyler
Toot went the van. Swish went the window wipers. We saw Mary with the boat radios.
We went to the Police
Station and Jordon showed us a rifle, a taser and a glock!
Wizz, I went flying in the
air and I fell off the flying fox.
WEEEEEEEE I went off and I went ZOOM.
My ice cream was green and
brown and we went to the wharf and we couldn’t get out because it was too
windy. It nearly pulled the van off the
wharf.
Bluff Adventure!
Crunch went the van
gears! Marlene tried to back up. Clang,
bang went the van! Yay, the van is going, off we go!
Jordon the policeman
showed us the Police Station. We saw the
guns, they were scary.
On the way back to school,
we had ice cream. I had chocolate.
By Sophie
Crunch went the gears!
Marlene was having trouble driving the van, the wipers went swish, swish. Marlene honked the horn while we went through
the drop off zone.
Then we drove to Bluff and
we went to get hot chips and we ate then at Bluff School. After we had our lunch we got to play on the
flying fox. It was scary.
When William went on the
flying fox he fell off it. Kane was
holding onto the flying fox and he fell off too.
We went to the Police
Station and he showed us his guns and bullets.
We got to have ice cream. I had
chocolate, it tasted fantastic!
By Shaana
Crunch went the van
gears! Marlene tried to drive the
van. Marlene tried to put on the
indicators.
Jordon the policeman
showed all ten of us around. We got to
hold a taser, a glock and a pistol.
Jordon tried the taser and it went ZZZZ!
We went to Bluff
School. They have a flying fox and they
have a new swing. Then we went to the
dairy and got yummy ice cream. Then we
went back to school. At lunch we got
fish and chips.
By Kane
Honk, honk went the van
when Marlene drove through the drop off zone.
Jordon the policeman showed us around the Police Station. The policeman showed us ten of the guns and
they were called, rifle, pistol and taser and the taser looked like lightning
and it zoomed.
On the way back Marlene
bought the ten of us some ice creams and we got to meet Shiro, Marlene’s
dog. Marlene’s dog was as cute as can be
and then we went back to school and it was the best day ever in Bluff.
By Adam
Toot! Toot! We went out
the drop off zone. We went to
Bluff. It was fun and we went to the
Police Station. We went to Bluff School. It was fun.
We all went on the flying fox.
Kane went out of control and we laughed and we played table tennis. Shaana kept hitting the ball down the
back. It was funny. I hit Tim on the head.
Then we had to go back to
school but we got an ice cream. I got a
candyfloss ice cream. I got a brain
freeze. It was cold.
When we got back to school
we got to play on the playground and I told the class we had a fun time.
By Caleb
Thursday, 2 August 2012
Friday Wonderings...
Today the students viewed our wonderful BLOG! They were all super excited to be published authors, and also to be famous worldwide! They are eagerly awaiting our first comment so please if you read their work, we would LOVE your feedback.
We have advised all of our whanau and learning community so we hope you enjoy our work.
We also recited our poems, the whole group can still say the week 1 poem, this is success! We have committed this poem to stay in our long term memory!
Isn't authorship incredibly motivating for student learners!
We have advised all of our whanau and learning community so we hope you enjoy our work.
We also recited our poems, the whole group can still say the week 1 poem, this is success! We have committed this poem to stay in our long term memory!
Isn't authorship incredibly motivating for student learners!
Kanes Writing
Little diamonds smaller than ants.
Sun is shining all over the grass.
Diamonds are sparkling full of dew.
Yesterday we rolled the dough for the ginger bread mans shape.
The gingerbread was spongy.
I put six pebbles on my Gingerbread man and chocolate chips.
Jack Frost is cold and is sparkly like diamonds.
Jack Frost covers the whole world in snow.
Jack Frost is frozen.
Sun is shining all over the grass.
Diamonds are sparkling full of dew.
Yesterday we rolled the dough for the ginger bread mans shape.
The gingerbread was spongy.
I put six pebbles on my Gingerbread man and chocolate chips.
Jack Frost is cold and is sparkly like diamonds.
Jack Frost covers the whole world in snow.
Jack Frost is frozen.
I've Got Something to Say - Gail Loane
This book is guiding and directing our learning pathway for this Accelerating Literacy challenge.
Gail Loane says every child has something to say about a whole lot of things.
We as teachers need to find out what it is they have to say and offer them opportunities to say it!
One thing I have decided during the past 8 weeks is that we must provide the TIME for ORAL Language, we must make the connection from ORAL to WRITING explicit, and we must link WRITING to READING. One can simply not occur without the other.
An AHA! Moment for me was at the ALL course in Wellington when Dr Barbara Watson said we as educators have timetabled Literacy into oral language, writing, reading and in doing so we have stopped student learners seeing the connections.
She said make your daily timetable into a LITERACY block and integrate all 3 disciplines into this time.
This made sense to me!
Gail Loane reminded me in this brilliant resource that children can write about issues close to their lives and hearts.
She encouraged me to start by talking to students to prompt and recall common life experiences.
She stated that shared stories, wonderings, observations, opinions and responses need to be at the heart of our writing programmes.
This has directed our writing and my teaching...
Gail Loane says every child has something to say about a whole lot of things.
We as teachers need to find out what it is they have to say and offer them opportunities to say it!
One thing I have decided during the past 8 weeks is that we must provide the TIME for ORAL Language, we must make the connection from ORAL to WRITING explicit, and we must link WRITING to READING. One can simply not occur without the other.
An AHA! Moment for me was at the ALL course in Wellington when Dr Barbara Watson said we as educators have timetabled Literacy into oral language, writing, reading and in doing so we have stopped student learners seeing the connections.
She said make your daily timetable into a LITERACY block and integrate all 3 disciplines into this time.
This made sense to me!
Gail Loane reminded me in this brilliant resource that children can write about issues close to their lives and hearts.
She encouraged me to start by talking to students to prompt and recall common life experiences.
She stated that shared stories, wonderings, observations, opinions and responses need to be at the heart of our writing programmes.
This has directed our writing and my teaching...
Clouds, Jack Frost and Dew Stories.
Tigers walking across the sky moaning and groaning. Clouds shaped like stars in the sky. Dancing across the clouds seeing how many shapes there are.
By Shaana
Blue sky like a stream floating in the sky and big monsters. A Motorbike rider is riding here like a streak of speed.
By William
Tyre marks on the sky like at the beach. Clouds like marshmallows in the sky, like a trampoline jumping from cloud to cloud.
By Caleb
Clouds like white icecreams in the sky and monster trucks rolling through the sky. Vanilla icecream clouds making shapes and imaginary pictures in my head.
By Tim
Cold crystals is ice chickenpox on the grass.
Little frost eggs on the grass
Vanilla chocolate sprinkled on the grass,
Rain sprinkles on the grass, the rain is broken.
By Adam
Jack Frost goes over the town and covers it in white because he does not like the colour green.
The sandpits frozen, the playgrounds covered in ice.
It is freezing ice.
By Casey
Dew sparkling on the grass even smaller than tiny ants.
Birds singing like a choir.
Those dew drop ants are like little diamonds like earrings that fell out of the sky.
By Sophie
Jack Frost covers our grass with white snow.
Jack Frost covers up bark chips.
Adam made a mountain of snow and it was cold!
It felt like a popsicle!
By Connor
Little diamonds shining in the sun.
Grass blades sparkling with dew drops.
Wind blowing my hair side to side.
Little diamonds shining everywhere.
Dew shines like glitter.
By Tyler
By Shaana
Blue sky like a stream floating in the sky and big monsters. A Motorbike rider is riding here like a streak of speed.
By William
Tyre marks on the sky like at the beach. Clouds like marshmallows in the sky, like a trampoline jumping from cloud to cloud.
By Caleb
Clouds like white icecreams in the sky and monster trucks rolling through the sky. Vanilla icecream clouds making shapes and imaginary pictures in my head.
By Tim
Cold crystals is ice chickenpox on the grass.
Little frost eggs on the grass
Vanilla chocolate sprinkled on the grass,
Rain sprinkles on the grass, the rain is broken.
By Adam
Jack Frost goes over the town and covers it in white because he does not like the colour green.
The sandpits frozen, the playgrounds covered in ice.
It is freezing ice.
By Casey
Dew sparkling on the grass even smaller than tiny ants.
Birds singing like a choir.
Those dew drop ants are like little diamonds like earrings that fell out of the sky.
By Sophie
Jack Frost covers our grass with white snow.
Jack Frost covers up bark chips.
Adam made a mountain of snow and it was cold!
It felt like a popsicle!
By Connor
Little diamonds shining in the sun.
Grass blades sparkling with dew drops.
Wind blowing my hair side to side.
Little diamonds shining everywhere.
Dew shines like glitter.
By Tyler
Gingerbread Men Baking Day
Yah! Yah! We are going to make Gingerbread men. The dough felt gooey and sloppy. I got the cookie cutter and made a fat gooey Gingerbread man. I put pebbles, chocolate chips and hundreds and thousands on his front.
By Tyler.
Yesterday we made Gingerbread men. The dough felt slimy and greasy. I decorated my man with hundreds and thousands and I put pebbles on too. My Gingerbread man had smarties on his front.
By Connor
Yesterday we rolled out the dough for Gingerbread men. It felt like mud and my head fell off. Once I got it cut out I decorated him with sprinkles. We cooked them they tasted hot! Our mouths were on fire!
By Sophie
Yesterday we made Gingerbread men and my head came off! It was so funny. I decorated mine with chocolate chips and smarties and hundreds and thousands. The dough felt sticky, it was so fun and we got to eat it!
By Casey
Yesterday we were baking we were all so excited. We made Gingerbread men, it felt so greasy. The first thing we rolled the dough it felt cold. And it was fun, we cut the dough and we decorated it with chocolate and smarties and hundreds and thousands.
By Tim
Yesterday we were making Gingerbread men it was exciting. First we washed our hands, then we spread the dough it felt soft. I put hundreds and thousands and chocolate pebbles on it. It was wet and warm.
By Shaana
Wednesday, 1 August 2012
Mashed Potatoes on the Ceiling
Mashed
potatoes on the ceiling
Green
beans on the floor
Stewed
tomatoes in the corner.
Squash
upon the door.
Pickled
peppers in my pocket.
Spinach
up my sleeves
Mushrooms
in my underpants with
Leeks and
lettuce leaves.
Okra,
onions, artichokes
Asparagus
and beets;
Buried
neatly underneath the
Cushions
of our seats.
All the
rest I have hidden in my socks
And down
my shirt
I’m done
with all my vegetables.
I’m ready
for dessert.
Ken
Nesbitt
|
|
Poems of the Week
The group of students are having fun learning the Poem of the Week. This has been a task to develop vocabulary and enjoy the repetition and rhyme in the texts.
The first week we had two students who managed to learn the entire poem and commit to memory in one night! Congratulations Sophie and Adam! I hope the whanau are also enjoying the poetry! We were all chanting this in our heads!
The students have embraced the challenge and loved performing our poem to a variety of audiences around the school. Thanks for your support at home!
The first week we had two students who managed to learn the entire poem and commit to memory in one night! Congratulations Sophie and Adam! I hope the whanau are also enjoying the poetry! We were all chanting this in our heads!
The students have embraced the challenge and loved performing our poem to a variety of audiences around the school. Thanks for your support at home!
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