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Tuesday 23 April 2013

Book character dress up day.


To commemorate Shakespeare's birthday Mrs Regaud our librarian organised a dress up day where children could come dressed as a character from a book.  



We met in the hall where each grade paraded their outfits. It was wonderful to see how much effort that pupils and parents went to.  Thank you for continued support parents, it is much appreciated.

The characters that the judges liked the best from our class.
Robin hood,was declared the overall winner.





We look forward to the 'Hooked on books' show on Thursday. Don't forget to bring your second hand books to donate to charity.

Sunday 21 April 2013

The stories for you to read.









Aardvarks, baboons and adjectives!

This week in our story about Pim the baby aardvark, he meets a baby baboon. Another chapter with fantastic descriptive words. 

So on Friday we had another wonderful lesson where we once again emphasised the importance of adjectives in sentence writing. Gill and I started the lesson by combining our classes to discuss the following sets of words - dark, moonlight night; grumpy aardvark; dry, sandy veld; sleepy baboon and tall trees, and how they can be used to make an interesting story. We got lots of other examples from the children and were very excited to see what they would come up with on their own.

They were allowed to choose a partner and soon set about writing their own stories based on what we had discussed. 

After discussing their ideas, each pair then wrote their stories out in rough. To save time, I typed them up whilst they illustrated their stories. 









I was delighted with the end results!










Tuesday 16 April 2013

Adjectives add interest!

Our novel, 'The aardark who wasn't sure' is full of wonderful descriptive sentences. Gill and I have therefore tried very hard over the last two weeks to draw attention to these. 

We began by introducing our classes to nouns and adjectives and gave the children a variety of examples to do in their books. We have begun to see a change in their sentence writing. However, it will have to be something that we stress throughout the year! But we are so pleased with the results so far.

I have typed up some examples of the sentences for you to read. ( I would have loved each child to do it themselves but we just didn't have time.) I am sure that you will agree that the sentences are pretty good. Please can we ask you to continue encouraging your children when they write their sentences at home.







Special mention must go to Ebrahim. He said that he did not want to write sentences, rather, he wanted to write a story! It is just a pity that he did not have longer to write as I am sure, judging by what he has written so far, it would have been amazing! Well done!





Friday 12 April 2013

Our termite frieze.

This week we read the first chapter in our book, 'The aardvark who wasn't sure', entitled, "What's termites?" Pim goes with his mother into the 'big world' to discover what termites are.

We have spent the week learning about termites and their colonies. Our children have been inspired and each break time they go termite hunting and bring them back for us to study under the magnifying glass.

In order for our classes to understand the concept of the termite colony, where working together is paramount,  Gill and I decided to get our children to work together on a frieze where everyone's input would be vital for it to be a success.


We divided our classes into three. One group would be designing and making the termite mound using torn egg boxes.



Another group made termites by first finger printing their bodies and then drawing in the legs and feelers.





The last group drew the aardvark and its surroundings.

Once each group had completed their task, we started putting everything together.


Once we did this, the excitement levels rose as everyone enthusiastically helped stick on the ants, made eggs for the queen and generally gave advice on the arrangement of everything.

I was so pleased with the way the children worked so beautifully together to create a magnificent end result. They all agreed that working as a team was important and were so proud of the end result.

It was a highly successful lesson where we more than achieved our objective. Gill and I were both blown away with how well our classes rose to the challenge.