Room12sBlog2008

Reading - 20 minutes each night

Basic Facts -Learn your basic facts if your need to

Spelling - Choose 10 words wrongly spelt words from your draft writing.  If you have no errors, choose words related to what we have been learning about  in class.  For example the words we are using in geometry!.  Make sure you choose words that are at the appropriate level for you spelling ability and that they are words that you would really use.  There’s no point learning words to spell words that mean nothing to you!

Special Activity - Find a newspaper article and read it with someone at home.  Discuss the meaning and message.

Highlight all the words you don’t understand and look them up in a dictionary.  (If there are more than 8 - just choose 8 to look up). 

Come prepared on Friday to share your news item with your class mates.

Don’t forget to bring a few coins in to school, for our collection, for this wonderful book that we read last week. 

Remember ‘The Enemy’ is a very thought provoking book that raises issues about war, the propaganda and the stereotypes that support and justify the cause!  This is your last year at Bayfield and it would be great to have our class name on this book! 

Would anyone like to write a book review of ‘The Enemy’ to post here on our blog and on our library catalogue?

Next week we will vote for the best blog.  Remember to keep the learning intentions in mind when making your choices! What we are looking for are blogs that have an educational focus, where the student is reflecting on their learning and where the blog has been kept up to date with regular posts!  Appearance is also  a factor, but not as important.   Here are the learning intentions - in case you have forgotten!

Learning Intention

I am learning to…

Communicate appropriately on my school blog using a variety of media

Success Criteria

To fulfill this learning intention, I need to satisfy the following criteria……

• proof read and edit my published blog work to the best of my ability
• post examples of my school work
• post  reflections on my learning
• make informative comments on other students’ blogs
• include content on my blog that is informative and appropriate for school

In maths, we are learning about 3D shapes. We thought about what we already know about shapes and symmetry.  We reminded ourselves about the parts of a shape including the the faces, vertices and the edges.  We also talked about where we would see geometric shapes in the ‘real world’.  Today we constructed 3D shapes by joining 2D shapes together.  We used toothpicks and blue-tack.

Here is fun interactive site with tangram puzzles;

http://standards.nctm.org/document/eexamples/chap4/4.4/index.htm#applet

Here are some pics of our gold winners!  Unfortuately there’s no video as I was away sick for much of the actual fair!  I have had feedback from many staff and parents about the high  standard of work!  

Mr Bloggy has had a bath and is now sporting his new trousers.  He’s looking forward to being back in class in the next couple of days. 

I have had a very nasty virus that has knocked me off my feet a bit.  I am having another day off to give the new medication a chance to work, so I won’t be in until Tuesday. 

I am not very happy about this but it just has to be.  I will send in work via email to Wendy to pass on to the relieving teacher.  In the mean time you can be working on your narrative plans and getting the art boards ready for painting.  If anyone has time, you could take the old hessian off the large boards and paint the boards black.

Book Fortnight

You need to think about getting yourselves into teams for the Book Olympics.  Michelle wants teams of 3-4 and only up to 5 if someone is going to be left out.  Remember you will have a much better chance of doing well if you have a mixed girls and boys team.  That way you will be covered for both boys and girls books.  The book parade is on Friday so start thinking about your character.  Stu Duvall is coming again this year.  He is always great value and I love the way he does the art work on the spot.

Homework

I have enjoyed reading your Science Fair reflection on your blogs.  I f you haven’t posted yours on your blog - it would be great if you did because I could read them at home.  If you don’t want to I will read them at the end of the week when you bring your homework book in.

Week 7’s Homework

The usual reading, basic facts and spelling.  Take your spelling from your draft books.  If you have no errors, use some interest words.  Make sure you use words that will challenge you, but that you would actually use!

This week’s special activity

Design and make a poster that encourages children to read.  The poster should be at least A3 in size.  If you need card, ask the relieving teacher or wait until I am in on Tuesday.  The poster is due on Friday and can be entered into the poster competition for Book Fortnight!

Here’s what to do:

Make an eye catching  poster that has a clear message about the benefits of reading.   Really THINK about why reading is so important for learning.

Include a message that will attract the attention of passers by. 

Use paint, crayon, pencil or any other media to create your poster.  You could use a collage of photographs or pictures from magazines perhaps.

Bring it to school on Friday.  We will choose about 4 that we enter into the poster competition.

Here are some notes about story writing.  It’s pretty much what we have talked about and used in class.   I will go through it all with you on Monday!

Purpose

The basic purpose of narrative is to entertain, to gain and hold a readers’ interest. However narratives can also be written to teach or inform, to change attitudes / social opinions eg soap operas and television dramas that are used to raise topical issues. Narratives sequence people/characters in time and place but differ from recounts in that through the sequencing, the stories set up one or more problems, which must eventually find a way to be resolved.

Types of Narrative

There are many types of narrative. They can be imaginary, factual or a combination of both. They may include fairy stories, mysteries, science fiction, romances, horror stories, adventure stories, fables, myths and legends, historical narratives, ballads, slice of life, personal experience.

Features

 
• Characters with defined personalities/identities.
• Dialogue often included - tense may change to the present or the future.
• Descriptive language to create images in the reader’s mind and enhance the story.

Structure

In a Traditional Narrative the focus of the text is on a series of actions:

Orientation: (introduction) in which the characters, setting and time of the story are established. Usually answers who? when? where? eg. Mr Wolf went out hunting in the forest one dark gloomy night.

Complication or problem: The complication usually involves the main character(s) (often mirroring the complications in real life).

Resolution: There needs to be a resolution of the complication. The complication may be resolved for better or worse/happily or unhappily. Sometimes there are a number of complications that have to be resolved. These add and sustain interest and suspense for the reader.

To help students plan for writing of narratives, model, focusing on:

• Plot: What is going to happen?
• Setting: Where will the story take place? When will the story take place?
• Characterisation: Who are the main characters? What do they look like?
• Structure: How will the story begin? What will be the problem? How is the problem going to be resolved?
• Theme: What is the theme / message the writer is attempting to communicate?

Language

• Action verbs: Action verbs provide interest to the writing. For example, instead of The old woman was in his way try The old woman barred his path. Instead of She laughed try She cackled.
• Written in the first person (I, we) or the third person (he, she, they).
• Usually past tense.
• Connectives,linking words to do with time.
• Specific nouns: Strong nouns have more specific meanings, eg. oak as opposed to tree.
• Active nouns: Make nouns actually do something, eg. It was raining could become Rain splashed down or There was a large cabinet in the lounge could become A large cabinet seemed to fill the lounge.
• Careful use of adjectives and adverbs: Writing needs judicious use of adjectives and adverbs to bring it alive, qualify the action and provide description and information for the reader.
• Use of the senses: Where appropriate, the senses can be used to describe and develop the experiences, setting and character:
  • What does it smell like?
  • What can be heard?
  • What can be seen - details?
  • What does it taste like?
  • What does it feel like?

   

• Imagery
  • Simile: A direct comparison, using like or as or as though, eg. The sea looked as rumpled as a blue quilted dressing gown. Or The wind wrapped me up like a cloak.
  • Metaphor: An indirect or hidden comparison, eg. She has a heart of stone or He is a stubborn mule or The man barked out the instructions.
  • Onomatopoeia: A suggestion of sound through words, eg. crackle, splat, ooze, squish, boom, eg. The tyres whir on the road. The pitter-patter of soft rain. The mud oozed and squished through my toes.
  • Personification: Giving nonliving things (inanimate) living characteristics, eg. The steel beam clenched its muscles. Clouds limped across the sky. The pebbles on the path were grey with grief.

   

• Rhetorical Questions: Often the author asks the audience questions, knowing of course there will be no direct answer. This is a way of involving the reader in the story at the outset, eg. Have you ever built a tree hut?  
• Variety in sentence beginnings. . 
• Show, Don’t Tell: Students have heard the rule “show, don’t tell” but this principle is often difficult for some writers to master. 
• Personal Voice: It may be described as writing which is honest and convincing. The author is able to ‘put the reader there’. The writer invests something of him/her self in the writing. The writing makes an impact on the reader. It reaches out and touches the reader. A connection is made.

Congratulations everyone!  I was very impressed with the quality of your science fair projects!  You should all feel very proud of yourselves!  Hopefully we will get the opportunity to take some pictures and videos to put on the blogs! 

Well now that Science Fair is almost behind us…….our next big challenge is the Blog Awards.    Take a look back at the post I wrote outlining the learning intentions and success criteria.    Think about how you can use your blog to reflect on your learning and share your ideas and thoughts!   I will start cruising your blogs more regularly to see what you are doing and we will have some whole class nominations in week 8!  It seems that you would like a choice of “bloggys’ to choose from?  I will have to get cracking and make a couple of really special ones and some mini ones too!

The Blog Awards are not compulsory.  I know that blogging is not for everyone - It is a very good way though of sharing your ideas and getting feedback. 

I am looking forward to reading your learning reflections on the Science Fair.  I am always interested in hearing what you think and I learn something every year that I can use the following year, I am learning too remember!

 I can’t remember what we said we were going to call our two new class friends???