This half term we have been reading The Wild Robot by Peter Brown.

Read the blurb..

Shipwrecked on a remote, wild island, Robot Roz learned from the unwelcoming animal inhabitants and adapted to her surroundings--but can she survive the challenges of the civilized world and find her way home to Brightbill and the island?

We created a text map of our model text.  We had great fun practicing it. 

We even used the text to do some Reading Vipers comprehension work. 

Portal Story

We have been learning about portal stories this half term.  If you could travel to another place where would it be? What would it look like? Who would you see? 

Our story is about the Ancient Egyptians. 

We did some hot seating.  This was good fun playing different characters.  

Then we visited embalming school.  Can you believe it! Actually mummifying a body in class  Well maybe not an actual body. 

We had great fun watching the 'expert embalmer'.  Then we had the chance to try it our selves. 

We finished our morning with a game of 'Wrap your mummy' This was so funny! Wrapping our friends in toilet roll. Take a look...what do you think? 

Description Writing

We have been learning about the importance of description in writing.  This half term we have been reading …

'The Christmasaurus' is a story about a boy named William Trundle, and a dinosaur, the Christmasaurus. It's about how they meet one Christmas Eve and have a magical adventure. It's about friendship and families, sleigh bells and Santa, singing elves and flying reindeer, music and magic. It's about discovering your heart's true desire and learning that the impossible might just be possible.

Using ideas from the Christmasaurus, we have been learning that description in stories helps us to trigger our imagination and see what the writer sees. 
 

Extract from the story without description:

The sky was above them. What they had thought was the moon was a meteorite. It had traveled from space and was about to hit planet Earth and wipe out all the dinosaurs. 
But just before the meteorite hit, the egg rolled to the edge of a cliff, above the ocean. 
 

Extract from the story with description: 

The whole sky was on fire above them. What they had thought was the flaming moon was, in fact, a whopping, giganterrific planet smasher of a meteorite. It had traveled from the deepest depths of space and was about to smash-whack into planet Earth and wipe out all the dinosaurs forever! 
But just before the meteorite did its planet smashing, the lucky egg rolled all the way to the edge of a tall, jagged cliff, high above the ferocious ocean. 

We have been learning about adjectives, similes and adverbs.  All of these bring our writing to life. 

Instruction Writing

Mrs Bell told us about her experience when she was out trick or treating at Halloween.  She bumped into a witch who told her all about a potion she had made. She told Mrs Bell that she had made a giggle potion.  She explained that you only need a tiny drop.  Too much would cause lots of problems.  The witch gave Mrs Bell a copy of the potion instructions in case she wanted to use them in class.  Mrs Bell decided this would be a great idea! 

Mrs Bell decided that we would learn how to write instructions.  We used the giggle potion instructions as our model text.

First thing we did was make a text map of the giggle potion that the witch gave Mrs Bell.  We did this because text maps help us remember information. 

After practicing with the text map, we did some role play.  This was great fun!  We pretended to be cooking show presenters and held our own Great British Potion Off.  

Letter Writing

Mrs Bell told us about a letter she received in the holidays.  It was from Mrs Dixon. Mrs Dixon had been on an adventure and was worried she would not get back in time for her return to school.  We learned about her adventure and what an adventure it was!

We used the letter to create a text map.  Using the text map we followed the adventure from start to finish, practicing and remembering the letter.  

Then we used 'phones' (calculators) to ring each other.  We did a little role play and pretended we were Mrs Bell and Mrs Dixon.  We chatted like one of us had been on the adventure and the other had received the letter.  This was great fun!

The next day we got the chance to see the actual letter and look at all of the information in it.  We found out about the following parts of the letter:

• Address
• Greeting
• Opening sentence
• Detailed paragraphs
• Closing statement
• Sign off
• Signature
• Post script.

We used a copy of the letter to identify all of these special parts. 

Instruction Writing 

This week we received a very exciting letter.  It was from Albus Potter, that's right, Albus Potter himself!  He told us some very important information and asked for our help.  Obviously we were very excited to be helping Harry Potter's son. 

After a chat with Mrs Bell, we decided this would be a great way to learn instruction writing.  Albus said he needed some new potions to replace some that he made disappear with a cleaning up spell.  I'm sure we can help with this.  

First thing we did was make a text map of the giggle potion that Albus sent us.  We did this because text maps help us remember information. 

After practicing with the text map, we did some role play.  This was great fun!  We pretended to be cooking show presenters and held our own Great British Potion Off.              

Word Class 

Our first activity of the lesson on Tuesday 25th January was finding the time conjunctions, imperative verbs and adverbs in a text.  We highlighted each one in a different colour.  This was just the start of our amazing work!

After that we went into the hall.  We played a game. We were in groups and had to work together to complete some challenges.  The challenges were to collect the right word class from lots of words scattered across the hall.  This was great fun. We love a challenge!

Autumn 2021

Time Conjunctions

In English the children have been learning about time conjunctions.  Time conjunctions are words that join phrases or sentences together to help us understand when something is happening.

Words such as before, after, next, just then, shortly, afterwards, last, eventually, firstly, secondly, and thirdly, are all-time conjunctions.

In this lesson the children did a practical lesson.  They worked in groups to make letters.. They had great fun working in the school hall.