Superstar Writer of the Week

We have been writing riddles to describe our favourite farm animal linked to our trip to Whirlow Hall Farm.

Can you guess which farm animal our Superstar Writer of the Week wrote her riddle about?

Who am I?

My babies are called chicks.

I have glossy, brown feathers and I scratch on the ground to find my food.

I live in a wooden, dark shed or in a grassy, green field.

I lay brown, speckled eggs and sometimes they can hatch into fluffy, yellow chicks.

I begin with the sound ‘h’.

 

 

 

Superstar Writer of the Week

Miss Varley was so impressed by your writing this week. You have been able to include expanded noun phrases, commands and exclamation sentences as well as independently including contractions in your topic work!

Superstar Writer of the Week

What a terrific transformation in your writing! You really deserve Superstar Writer this week.

We have been innovating a story to add in our own characters and you have been able to include expanded noun phrases, commands, questions and exclamation sentences in your writing. It was a pleasure to mark your book! Keep it up!

Superstar Writer of the Week

What a fantastic effort from our Superstar Writer of the Week. Miss Varley was so impressed by your independent writing this week when you wrote a letter, pretending to be the farmer from the story ‘The Papaya that Spoke’ by Pie Corbett.

Superstar Writer of the Week

Logan won our Superstar Writer of the Week award this week for all of his hard work and perseverance in Literacy this week.

At the beginning of the week, you were able to work in a group, to practise reciting a poem and then performed it at the end of the lesson. Your poem based on the sense of touch was full of brilliant expanded noun phrases and you tried really hard to sound out your words carefully. Well done Logan. 

Explore Learning Workshop

Today we found out that we had a surprise in Literacy this morning. Beth and Emily from Explore Learning came to run a session for us all about Pirates.

We all were given a special booklet to complete throughout the session.

We played lots of fun games like noun bingo, awesome adjectives and creating noun phrases to describe what we could see, hear and smell if we were at sea.

We had a brilliant time today and it was fun to do something with our friends.

Superstar of the session was Tiana and Bobby won the award for being a team player and helping out his friends if they were stuck.

Certificates will be winging their way to you soon!

Look out for a letter coming home tonight to explain more about the session and further details if you would like to find out more about Explore Learning.

National Poetry Day 2016

This week, we celebrated National Poetry Day in class and we loved it.

Our favourite poem is called:

Jump or Jiggle by Evelyn Beyer

Frogs jump
Caterpillars hump

Worms wiggle
Bugs jiggle

Rabbits hop
Horses clop

Snakes slide
Sea gulls glide

Mice creep
Deer leap

Puppies bounce
Kittens pounce

Lions stalk
But–I walk!

We worked in groups to learn the poem and then recited back to each other in small groups.

After that, Miss Varley told us about a very special competition that we could be a part of with Young Writers.

We have to submit a poem that we have written by ourselves about an animal and if we win, we will get published and be part of the Yorkshire and Humberside book.

We can’t wait to see if we are going to be famous!

We have started to write some riddles about animals, remembering to use expanded noun phrases (adjective, adjective noun) and similes (using like or as) to help us to describe the animals, real, wild or imaginary.

Let us know what you think about our riddles in the comment box below.

How you can help your child at home:

• Read poems with your child.
• Think of different words that rhyme.
• Have a go at writing a riddle of your own at home.
• Put actions of your own to the poem Jump or Jiggle.

Writing Fantasy Stories

In Literacy, we have been writing our own fantasy stories to include a dragon.

First we planned our stories using story maps or story planners to make sure that we had a clear beginning, middle and ending to our stories.

Then we started to write our dragon stories. We made sure that we included expanded noun phrases and similes in our stories to add detail for the reader. we have really enjoyed writing the stories and we hope that you enjoy reading them too.

Once we had finished, we had a go at self and peer assessing our stories with our friends to make sure that we had included everything on the checklist. We know that sometimes we have things that we need to work towards and we can make sure we try to do these things next time.

What could do at home to support your child:

1. Read fantasy stories that include dragons to help build up your child’s imagination.
2. Plan a simple fantasy story with a beginning, middle and an ending.
3. Talk through the plan with your child so they have a clear understanding of how the story flows.
4. Let your child write their story. Remind your child to use their phonics when they are sounding out and spelling words.
5. Then go through the story with your child, finding two things about their story that you like and then suggest one way in which they could improve it.

Here Be Dragons…

This week, we have been learning about dragons in Literacy. We have read the stories The Dragon Machine and George and the Dragon to help us with our Literacy work.

We have been using adjectives to help us make noun and expanded noun phrases to describe the dragons.

These were some of the suggestions made by the children:

‘mean, ugly dragon’, ‘terrifying, scary dragon’, ‘fierce, vicious dragon’

We also looked at how to use similes to add more description to our writing.

‘The dragon had breath as hot as a volcano’s fire‘

‘His claws were as sharp as razor blades‘

‘He could fly as high as the mountains and as low as the ground‘

We made our own small world play so we could retell the stories in our own words.

Then we looked at dragons in our independent learning and we found out it was Chinese New Year but it was when we were on our February holidays. So we decided that we would celebrate it this week instead.

We read the story of the Zodiac. Each year is named after an animal who won in the race. This year is Year of the Monkey! We found out that we were born in the Year of the Rat or Year of the Ox.

We made dragon masks in our independent learning time and added decorations to them.

On Friday, we had a massive celebration for Chinese New Year and we had a Chinese New Year banquet with all of our friends, before we went to the hall so we could perform our Dragon dance. We had so much fun.

What you could do at home?

1. Use the Internet to look at other customs that take place in Chinese New Year.
2. Visit the library to find story books to read about dragons.
3. Use adjectives to describe different objects around your home.