Bonsai- Literacy-5.2.20
In literacy, Bonsai were using shades of meaning to up-level their vocabulary. We used an online thesaurus to find synonyms that we could use in our narratives on ‘The Secret Garden’. After this, we had a go at using our new-found words in sentences ready to use on our stories.
Year Two have been working on improving a boring sentence using adjectives and adverbs.
How could you improve this sentence?
The frog jumped.
We had great fun in Literacy today, exploring the sounds different instruments make. We have been looking at poetry to do with our senses and were playing instruments and then writing down words to describe each sound.
We generated our own word bank which will support us when we come to write our own senses poems.
In literacy, we have been learning the difference between technical and general language. We used our skimming and scanning skills to read research sheets about gold before being language detectives to find technical and general vocabulary. Here are some examples of technical language we found: karat, density, malleable, atomic number and chemical. General language included; under, the, a, sometimes and often.
In literacy, we have been using collaboration to describe a picture from Alchemy Island. First, we created a mind-map of adjectives using our senses. Then we wrote sentences using our inference skills and ambitious language to describe the setting.
Willow and Maple class are really getting into our new Literacy story – “Traction Man”. They sequenced the story using pictures and were great at explaining their choices to each other and the rest of the class. If you want to watch a reading of the book at home, please find a YouTube link below.
Monkey Puzzle spent their Literacy lesson investigating ambitious, descriptive vocabulary to uplevel their sensentences. They worked really hard showing their understanding of learning values and how they can be used in all lesson to help them. We now have a great working wall of sentences that we can use in our narratives.
In Year Two, we are getting to grips with what we are going to write in our message in a bottle. We want to include why we became stranded.
Have a look at the description of the storm that cause the unlucky sailor to become washed up on a deserted island.
What a super effort! Which bits can you magpie for your description?
Yesterday Year 2 started using colourful semantics to up level some of their sentences.
Can you spot an adverb of time or an exciting verb?
Year 5 have been working hard using a Thesaurus to uplevel their vocabulary. They then had to decide on a order for their selection of words from the least amount of impact to the most.
We have an alien update for you. The children in Maple and Willow class today received an email from Professor Pong from the British Space and Alien Research company. He is planning to help us locate and send home the alien that crash landed on our playground a few weeks ago.
We will be building up to write an email back to him once we have more facts. To help us with our future email writing, we became Feature Detectives today, working in groups to find full stops, capital letters, question marks and finger spaces. We worked brilliantly together, collaborating and taking turns.
Both year 6 classes have spent time this week drafting out their paragraphs for their non-chronological reports about an animal of choice from the Arctic or Antarctica. They’ve shown great attitudes to learning by always looking to improve their writing and by using the resources available to them.
In Literacy we have been learning about non-chronological reports. As a part of this we have been looking at a range of examples.
In one of our sessions we became features detectives. We were looking for ‘generalising vocabulary’ (such as some, mostly, sometimes, often), and technical vocabulary (such as habitat, environment, resources).
Some of us then tried to find synonyms for some of the words. Synonyms are words that have the same meaning (happy, joyful etc).
Year 5 had an exciting Literacy lesson developing their dictionary skills and learning the definitions of complex words such as coronation and imprisonment.
In literacy, Year 3 have been writing stories based on the traditional tale of The Little Red Hen. We listened to the story and then wrote our own versions. Today we shared our stories with Year 1 – they enjoyed our stories!
Having finished their writing unit on Explanation Text before half term, Oak Class have been working with their Writing Buddies today to identify their successes in their writing and correct any errors they may have made. They then looked back at their first piece of work (Elicitation Task) and compared it to their Big Write (end task) and thought about what they had improved upon. They (and Mrs Cooke!) were very pleased with what they found!
In Fir and Redwood class, we have started thinking about the letter we are writing to a Chinese school. We have learnt a lot about Chinese schools and we used this to create some questions we would like to ask them:
Do you like your uniform?
Do you like dinosaurs, if so would you like to be a paleontologist?
Do you have a school uniform you have to wear?
Do you know the English alphabet?
What do you do in mathematics?
When do you stop for summer holidays?
What is your lucky number?
How hard is it to work with 50 people in your class?
How long is your normal school day?
What is your favourite subject?
Do you find using chop-sticks easy or hard?
How old are you?
This morning, Year 6 became immersed in their new Literacy unit – the Roman times. Over the new few weeks, we will be working towards writing an authentic tale of mystery and intrigue so we needed to research this exciting period in history.
Today, in literacy, Redwood Class have been exploring the features of a non-chronological report. Mrs Cooke cut up some pages from a book and we had to decide how to put them back together. Do you think we did a good job? 
Year 3 have had lots of fun today learning actions to help them retell the story of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. 
Following the arrival of their special parcel yesterday, Team 2 have been exploring the features of a Traditional Tale – Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We have found adjectives, third person, past tense, time adverbials and lots of ISPACE! 
At the start of their new topic, Holes, year 6 have received a letter from Mr Minoia asking for their help to persuade the Public Health, Sanitation and Consumer Products Safety Group that the conditions at Camp Green Lake are unsatisfactory. Today, we have read our exemplar text and highlighted key features of a persuasive letter.
Year 3 have been working hard on using metaphors to describe parts of a penguin. Today, we have collaborated in groups to describe the tummy, flippers and feet using metaphors.
Can you remember what a metaphor is?
This morning we peer marked our Big Writes! We collaborated in pairs to mark our learning and responded to our marking with our purple pens to make progress. 
Year 1 spent some time looking at what makes our writing successful. We then worked together to find examples in our writing.
What successes did you find?
In literacy today, year 3 have collaborated to mark their chronological reports. They have looked at what they have done well and what they could improve on next time. They also looked at their writeria to see what they need to make sure they include in their next piece of writing.
In preparation for our year 3 residential, we have been learning about the StoneAge, Iron Age and Bronze Age. We have been researching lots over the last few weeks and have also been using our home learning to help us write a chronological report about these three eras. Today, we have written our final chronological reports.
After enjoying the snow yesterday, Year 3 came back to school ready for their big writes today. We wrote a play script based on our favourite Greek myth. Miss Souter and I can’t wait to read them all later!
Today, in Literacy, Fir Class have been using their word and sentence skills to up-level their writing. What do you think of their efforts?
‘It was Ariadne.’
‘Behind the enormous rock was the daughter of the despicable King Minos, the kind but plain Princess Ariadne.’
Today we have begun exploring our favourite Greek myths in greater detail, ready to write our own plays!
Year 3 are continuing to immerse themselves in four Greek Myths. They have chosen their favourite one and are now working in groups to act out part of the story. They have then recorded the speech and will transfer this onto speech bubbles tomorrow.
In year 3 today, we have started our new literacy unit – play scripts. We will be working towards writing our own play script based on a Greek myth. We have started by being Feature Detectives and hunting for all all the features of a playscript. From this, we created our own success criteria.
Today, year 3 have been writing their non-chronological reports about the lightbulb. We have learnt about Thomas Edison, how a lightbulb works in a circuit and how light bulbs have changed people’s lives.
We had a great morning in literacy today being interviewers and characters from our stories. We asked questions about how we feel and what we want more than anything else in the world and our characters answered really well.
We had an evil king who wanted a castle to live in, a princess who was lost in the woods and a fairy who was lonely.
What other characters do you think should be in a fairytale?
We learnt that a noun is a person, place or thing and usually we can touch a noun. We labelled nouns we found around our classroom!
This week Year 4 have been concentrating on expanding their vocabulary. They have been playing games like ‘Swap Shop’ and ‘Pairs’ and matching words to their definitions.
This morning, Apple Class became feature detectives and searched for our new topic words within our letter example. They worked incredibly hard and collaborated with one another to be successful.
It was noticed that the words that were frequently present within the letter were: “tidy” and “litter”. The children decided they would be the words they must include in their own writing.
Do you know what all our vocabulary words mean?
Can you come up with a definition for each of them?
This afternoon Redwood Class re-enacted the story of The Little Red Hen.
Today the children enjoyed the nice weather by going outside to do literacy. We are looking at the book ‘Little Red Hen’ and the children had to re-enact the story using a story map.
Apple Class headed outside today to hunt for questions, commas in lists and apostrophes in a piece of text. It’s the start of their new literacy topic on the life cycle of a plant.
Redwood Class have been finding out wether or not they can follow instructions. The results were interesting!
We made our very own setting and puppets of characters from The 3 Billy Goats Gruff story. They helped us re tell the story in our own words. Great fun!
Apple and Palm class had a terrifying visitor today. We got to ask them lots of questions and discovered how the wolf felt during different parts of the story. Did you feel sorry for him? Why did he trick Little Red Riding Hood?
Ebony class worked hard this morning to up level boring, simple sentences. Some used colourful semantics to support them, others used ISPACE and many used our new verb tense help guide to try and include the passive voice.
We started our performances of our myths this morning and so far the standard is brilliant!
They have shown great collaborative skills as well as showing a great understanding of performance skills and how to turn a text into their own words. What has impressed me particularly is their ability to give honest and constructive feedback to one another and how they accept it also.
Well done guys!
This morning, Ebony class have been working in groups to reinact some cultural myths regarding animals. They have had to discuss and problem solve which bits they deem to be the most important to act out, consider their language choices alongside work effectively in the group.
I have been impressed with their enthusiasm and diplomacy skills as well as their focus and engagement.
Do you know any African myths about animals?
This morning in Literacy some children shared their poems that they found for their homework. We all listened and discussed what it was about and what we liked about it.
We then explored different poems in a carousel of activities and wrote on post it notes what we noticed about each poem. Some poems didn’t have titles so we thought about what we might call them and why. We recognised rhyming words and wrote down our favourite ones that we found in each poem.
This morning in Literacy we were very practical with our sentences! We thought of simple sentences and then expanded them with the help of our colourful semantic cards. We focused on moving the order of words in our sentences to check if it would make sense in different ways.
Today in Literacy, we have been ‘feature detectives.’
Using a model example, we highlighted the key features and interesting language techniques used in a scientific write up.
Can you remember the important features?
Today we used “colourful semantics” cards to help us learn about different word types. We then had our first go at improving a boring sentence using our new knowledge.
