Literacy

Hot Seat

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We are reading “Blabbermouth” by Morris Gleitzman in reading groups this term. Today we wanted to find out more about the chararcters – how they felt about what was happening, how they saw other characters in the story and why they did the things they did!

We took it in turns to be a character from the text and had to sit in the “Hot Seat” to answer questions from the audience.

It was great that people were able to ask thoughtful, provoking and intelligent questions to the character (and yes there were some funny ones as well 🙂  ) and the characters answered cleverly and authentically too.

Well done reading group!

Conscience Alley

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Today we tried a great thinking activity during reading.

MrsP was reading us “Rowan of Rin” and the villagers were trying to decide whether or not to climb the mountain to see if they could find out what was blocking the stream.

We stopped reading and got into two groups:

  • one group discussed why the villagers should go to find out why the stream had stopped;
  • the second group discussed why the villagers shouldn’t go.

Then the two groups stood face to face and made an alley-way up the middle. Then we chose a student to be a villager and walk up the alley.

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As the villager walked up the alley, everyone (one person at a time) said their a reason to either go up/ or not go up the mountain. DSC09857DSC09858

At the end of the alley the villager had to make a decision about what she would do. Today the villager decided to go up the mountain!

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This was just as well, because the villagers in the story also decided they had to climb the mountain too 🙂

  • Do you believe that this activity helped you to think more deeply about the decision that the villagers had to make?
  • Did you feel more involved in the story after thinking about the story in this way?

Ready for a Reading Challenge!

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As it’s the start of a new term, we are all ramping up our efforts in the Premier’s Reading Challenge.

Many of us have attempted this challenge in previous years, but not everyone has acheived the target of reading 20 books yet. So we have decided to really “give it a go” this year. We have worked out some individual and class rewards as we hit small targets on our way to 20 books each.

Here are some photos of us in our morning DEAR (drop everything and read) session today. We look like we should be able to reach 20 books each no trouble don’t we? 🙂

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The Diary of a Killer Cat

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This week in Reading Groups our group read the story:

“The Diary of a Killer Cat”

By Anne Fine.

The story takes place in a normal, suburban house in a normal, suburban street. One week, an average family with a mum, a dad and a little girl find themselves dealing with an outrageous KILLER CAT!!!!!!!!

The cat murdered on Monday.

The cat assassinated on Wednesday.

But who or what would it target by the end of the week?

This is an hilarious tale, written in a diary style, about what a normal cat gets up to in a not so normal week.

We recommend that this story is suitable for 8-12 year olds who like to giggle.

Here are some of our pictures of Tuffy, the killer cat!

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All Our Own Work

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While working on our Personal Projects we have been talking about copyright and plagiarism.

Mrs P showed us a diagram which helps us remember to make our work our own:

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  1. In the bottom left is the information we read and use to inform us about our topic.
  2. At the top is our brain – we have to use our brain to think about the information, to ask more questions and to try and synthesise the information + our prior knowledge + background info. This will help us answer our small questions.
  3. On the bottom right is our Project or response to our “Big Question”. This is where we present what we have learned in our words – to answer our own individual question. 

We are all trying hard to use this triangle to help us use the information we find!

Round Robin Poetry

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Today we had some fun writing  what we have called “Round Robin” poems. We were put in groups of 4 with a collection of topic cards as well.

Each person got a topic card and had to write a line about thteir topic; then we had to pass our line and topic on to the next person so that they could write a line about the topic too.

We talked about different poems we knew, rhymimg poems, and poems that didn’t rhyme.

Some of the finished poems didn’t really make sense, some were funny, some were interesting, some were strange, some were really good too!

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Harry Potter Happenings #1

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Nearly everyone in the AllStars has seen the Harry Potter films, but not many people have read the books. So we are reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone altogether in shared reading time.

Today we had to draw a large portrait of one of the characters introduced early in the book. We had to find the written description of the character in the text and then together come up with a sketch of what we think they look like. We will be painting them and adding other information to them later on.

Here is what we have done so far …..
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Can you tell who any of the characters are yet?????

Spooky Campfire Stories

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We wrote these scary stories last week – we think that they would be perfect to tell around a camp fire …. in the dark!

Read on …..

if you dare!

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Last  Sleep Ever!

By Odelia

On a dark and gloomy night, when the clock struck 12 – the midnight hour began.

The little girl Mimi was fast asleep with her window wide open.

Suddenly ….. swoooooossshhhh!!!!

The little girl felt something sleeping near her – she opened her eyes slowly but something wrapped the curtain around her neck.

From that day on, when the clock strikes 12 the ghost of Mimi comes back … to remember her last sleep ….

ever!

 

The boy passed through the cemetry and saw a shining light.

It was a girl, he couldn’t see her face but there was blood on her body.

The boy was scared and ran back to his house. He opened the door and turned on the light…..

Aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!

The girl was in his house.

She was holding a knife.

There was a scream ………

 

By Charbel

 

Creepy Noise

By Adam

*** Please read this in a soft, spooky voice - very quietly until the end!

One night, down by a flowing river in the darkest part of the National Park I put up my tent and made a fire to roast my marshmallows on.

Everything was nice and quiet until the silence was broken by screams and screechy sounds and thumps.

Then out of nowhere a shadow appeared in a shimmering light.

My heart was beating very fast, I could hardly breathe.

After a few seconds, which felt like hours, I moved quickly into my tent. The shadow moved quickly, the ground shook, the sounds became louder and fire went out.

I was in shock and not thinking clearly and the shadow shouted,

“RUN AWAY or I WILL HIT YOU!”

 

 

 
Image: ‘Campfire‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/27526538@N07/3193306929

 

 

 

 

 

DROP EVERYTHING AND READ!

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We “Drop Everything and Read” (DEAR) every morning – first thing. We come in to the room, take out our reading books and READ :-).

At first some of us found this hard to do, but now everyone is able to read quietly and consistently for about 15 minutes each day.

This term we are trying something new!

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Every day a group of people will be reading our class blog and other blogs during DEAR time. This will give everybody the opportunity and time to see and read what is happening in our class, our school, and our blogging friends classrooms across the world. It will also be a great chance to get some commenting in to 🙂

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What do you think? Is reading blogs a good way to “drop everything and read”?

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