What an amazing celebration!
On Tuesday the entire Junior School participated in a variety of activities to celebrate all aspects of literature. In class we participated in theatre sports games, Specky Magee footy clinics and descriptive writing. At lunchtime there were literature treasure hunts and more sports clinics on the oval.
We were so fortunate to have Felice Arena speak to us about being an author. You probably know him best for his Specky Magee series which he first wrote 16 years ago! He shared his favourite childhood books as well as many others that he had written, even some in other languages! He encouraged us all to put screens down and pick up a book!
His latest books ‘The Boy and The Spy’ and ‘Fearless Frederic’ are historical narratives. This means that he put in a lot of research into the times when they are set and the daily lives of of what people did then to make his story more believable. This is what we will be doing soon with our convict diaries that we will be writing.
The students of 4T have written a sizzling start about their favourite part of Literature Day. Have a read and see if you can identify the elements of a sizzling start that they have used.
What did you enjoyed most about our Literature Festival?
Gosh time certainly does fly! Here we are, our second last week of participating in the Global Read Aloud project.
In 4T, we have come to greatly care for Roz and Brightbill and are drawing many links between how the animals treat each other and how we interact with people on a day to day basis.
In Chapter 58, the animals talk about their purpose in life.
“Everything has a purpose . . . The sun is meant to give light. Plants are meant to grow. We owls are meant to hunt.”
In your opinion, what is Roz’s purpose and why?
Read the instructions of how to leave your thoughts on this global padlet below. Return regularly to see if someone has left you a comment or maybe you could even add to someone else’s thinking.
WOW! What a Wednesday, in case our days weren’t busy enough, today 4T took part in two activities – one to make us more aware of ourselves and our thoughts and the other to participate in something with classrooms from all over Australia!
Firstly we had a visit from our wonderful school psychologists Jen and Jessie who came to speak to us again about our Brain 1 and 2 and how we can keep our Brain 2 in check. Especially in the playground when we can be carried away with playing games and sports or seeing our friends.
We watched some videos called ‘Uncle Drew’ where we examined the effects of judgements that we make of others.
Our Number 2 brain does not like having to persist or to try new things. They can easily get into negative habits of being silly, poor choices, not being friendly or not listening. Everytime we give something a go and try to think differently we are growing new neural pathways in our brain to change our thinking. This actually requires courage and strength!
After recess, we participated in the National Simultaneous Storytime. This is where at 11.00am schools all over Australia stopped to read a story at the same time. This year’s story was Tony Wilson’s, ‘The Cow Tripped Over the Moon.’
Relive the fun and watch Tony Wilson read his story below.
This book made us think about our achievements and the role that persistence plays in reaching them.
What achievement are you most proud of? What did you have to do to get there?
What an amazing celebration!
On Tuesday the entire Junior School participated in a variety of activities to celebrate all aspects of literature. From drama to writing limericks to creating our own monsters!
We were so fortunate to have Sofie Laguna speak to us about being an author. Did you know that she really wanted to be an actor? However, she found it really difficult to ‘cut the mustard’ and became a writer instead.
We loved hearing about her first story ‘My Blanket’ which was a story based on her friend when she was three years old.
- She had some really interesting tips about writing too, she said to:
Start with something you know, like how your parents embarrass you….
- If you have ‘writer’s block’, the best thing to do is to write anyway and you can go back and fix it up and make it better later.
We are reading Tom Appleby Convict Boy by Jacqui French, but maybe next time we should read about the character Grace she created. She read to us from the book ‘Meet Grace’ which is the first novel in the series. It’s about a young girl trying to survive in England in the 1700s. It would be super helpful for when we write our Convict Diaries.
Here is a link to her website – click on it and find out more about Sofie and her books.
http://sofielaguna.com/
The students of 4T have written a sizzling start about their favourite part of Literature Day. Have a read and see if you can identify the elements of a sizzling start that they have used.
Tell us about what you enjoyed most about our Literature Festival?
Together, we have been reading the text Fish in a Tree by Linda Mullaly Hunt. See the blurb below to get an understanding of the book. Or you can watch the book trailer if you like!
We are loving our class novel about Ally Nickerson, a girl who struggles with her learning.
“I like this book so far because it has some parts where the main character has to use courage.” Georgia
“Ally Nickerson has trouble reading so she creates distractions so the teacher’s don’t notice her.” Dougie
“This is an interesting book because I enjoy hearing her excuses but some of us feel frustrated because she gets opportunities to ask for help and doesn’t use them. Instead she calls herself dumb.” Alice and Eliza
This week 4T also received their first Book Chat books.
Our Book Chat Books
What do you love about reading?
Which book are you currently reading? Describe it so far using 30 words.
