Today 3A visited one of the prep grades to share our recently published picture story books. We had been looking forward to doing this! The books were written with a younger audience in mind and we think that the preps really enjoyed listening to our stories and seeing the pictures that matched the words.
What did you enjoy about sharing your Picture Story Book?
3A have been working hard to publish their information reports and I am sure that everyone will agree that the finished reports are impressive!
Information Reports consist of information or facts. Students researched their topics, took notes and then made sure that they used their own words (so that the writing sounded like their voice). They organised their information into paragraphs with headings and they wrote in the third person. Students revised and edited their writing and drew pictures on their finished report to enhance them. Everyone did a great job of using the 6+1 Traits of writing.
When you next write an information report, what topic do you think you will choose?
This week 3A have been learning about how to use the Ideas trait in their Writers Notebooks. Writers who use the Ideas trait well produce entries that are clear, focussed and interesting. We have talked about how important it is to focus on one small moment and choose topics that we know a lot about.
Today we went outside and wrote an entry about the things we could see, hear and feel.
What are some of your ideas?
Our Learning Focus in Reading this week is synthesising. When we synthesise, we combine what we already know with what we are reading to gain new understandings or ideas.
We read “Two Bad Ants” written by Chris Van Allsburg
You can watch it on Youtube …..
The new idea/theme/message that 3A got from this book are “Being greedy can get you into trouble,”
“If you stick together things will be OK,” and “Being part of a team can be rewarding.”
Can you come up with any other messages from Two Bad Ants?
This week in Writer’s Workshop we are learning about the features of a picture story book
Below is a table that we developed which shows what 3A consider to be the ……..
ELEMENTS OF A GOOD PICTURE STORY BOOK
| TITLE | Memorable, catchy, match tone of story |
| THEME | (Message) emotions, difference, friendship, feelings, YCDI keys |
| CHARACTER/S | Personality, mood, |
| NARRATIVE STRUCTURE (Problem/complication) | A problem/complication that needs to be solved |
| BOLD BEGINNING | Hooks the reader |
| SETTING | Set the mood and help reader become involved with story |
| VOICE/AUDIENCE | Story appeals to the audience. Author’s personality shines through. Believable and related to author’s experience. |
| WORD PLAY(good to read aloud) | Rhythm, rhyme, repetition, voice, flow, sensory words, alliteration, vocabulary, adjectives, verbs, similes, onomatopoeia, |
| ILLUSTRATIONS | Create drama and excitement, support the text, reveal what is not said (gives reader opportunity to make inferences), create a “big reveal” moment |
| EXCELLENT ENDING | Ties up the story. |
Today we read
It made us laugh! Fearless is timid and polite but people who didn’t know him thought he was scary.
We wrote on the features of this picture story book on our whiteboard.
What did you like the most about Fearless?
Can you describe Fearless’s character traits?
When exploring information reports we decided that the following elements were really important:Planning (using a graphic organiser)
Title
Introduction (general statement/classification/description of what report is about)
Paragraphs to organize information (3 or more sentences per paragraph)
Topic sentences at the beginning of each paragraph
Sentence Fluency (long and short sentences)
Conjunctions (to make some sentences longer)
Facts
Technical words
Summary ( to tie all of the information together)
Revision using ARMS – Add, Remove, Move, Substitute
Editing using CUPS – Capitals, Understanding, Punctuation, Spelling
An annotated information report about Day and Night
You will notice that the students of 3A did a great job of using the important elements listed above in their Information Reports.
What do you think is the most important element of an information report?
This week in our reading sessions we have been focussing on “visualising”. Visualising means to form a picture in your mind and it helps us to comprehend (understand) and remember texts that we are reading.
This week we read a poem called “The Land of Nod” and drew a picture of what we visualised on a piece of quilt. When all of the pictures were put together it was interesting to see how differently we all visualised the poem.
Have you visualised when reading lately?
This week we have been learning about ANZAC day because it is 100 years since the first ANZACs landed at Gallipoli.
We remember the ANZACs because they were brave and they fought in the First World War to keep us safe. We appreciate what they did and thank many of them for sacrificing their lives.
Today Zoe brought in a special book titled “Galipoli” about two mates who went to Gallipoli. Their names were Bluey and Dusty and they “joined up” to begin an adventure. They met Simpson and his donkey (Duffy) and both spent time in hospital on an island called Lemnos. It was a nice book to read because it told the story of Gallipoli from their point of view.
Last year I visited the War Memorial in Canberra and took this photo of the wall which has the names of Australians who have lost their lives in wars.
We will never forget them.
What else do you know about ANZAC day?
Do you know of any family members (eg great grandfathers) who have been in wars?
Did you do anything to celebrate ANZAC day with your family on Saturday?
3A have done a fantastic job of writing personal narratives using the 6+1 Traits of Writing to follow the writing process from Ideas, Entries, Drafting, Revising and Editing to Publishing.
We hope you enjoy reading our personal narratives!
Now that we have written the mighty middles of our personal narratives, it’s time to look at excellent endings.
What makes an excellent ending? The ending is about tying up the pieces of the narrative, solving the situation/problem and leaving the reader with a sense of resolution.
This week we have been looking at what makes a great ending and we have come up with a few techniques that author’s use. Some of these are:
1. A question/open ended statement: “I never found out what had happened….”
2. A decision: “Now I will…”
3. A surprise: “He slowly opened the door, it was……”
4. A feeling: “I felt so happy!”
5. A memory: ” I will never forget that day.”
6. A hope/wish: ” I hope that …..”
7. A thought: “As I drove off I wondered….”
8. A lesson: “From that day on I ….”
“The Red Woollen Blanket” by Bob Graham begins with: “Julia had her own blanket right from the start”
I like the ending which leaves the reader with a thought….”It could have been anywhere at all…and she hardly missed it.”
Which technique did you use for your excellent ending?