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Category Archives: Literacy
Haldon Street Success!
Dance group had an amazing time walking in the street parade, and performing, at the Haldon Street Festival in Lakemba on Saturday.
We arrived early, did our makeup, and put our walking shoes on to proudly represent our school.
During the street parade we handed out books, which were donated by our school library, to children along Haldon Street in order to spread the ‘reading bug’.
Straight after the parade we headed to the main stage to perform our story dance to our wonderful community.
Thank you to all the teachers, parents and students that turned up to cheer us on! We had an amazing time and could not have done it without you.
Check out some of the highlights of our day in the gallery below…
Now we eagerly await the final results for the Wakakirri prize….keep your fingers and toes crossed!
Stage 3 Read with their Stage 1 Buddies
All of the students had a wonderful time. The room was abuzz with reading and talking about texts.
Buddy Reading . . . a HIT!! from BSPS on Vimeo.
Armidillo’s by Stage 3
In our Stage 3 Literacy group with Ms Filacouridis, we found out about armidillo’s by reading an information report. Before reading the information report, we had to use any pre existing background knowledge that we had to draw what we thought an armidillo might look like – the only clue we were given was that it was an animal!
Here are some of our labelled drawings based on our predictions.
Then we read a paragraph which described the armidillo. We had to use this information to draw our intepretations now that we had some knowledge of what the armidillo looked like.
Then, we went on the internet and looked at armidillo’s in their natural environment. They were very cute!
We continued developing our knowledge on the armidillo by working through the information report which detailed where they lived, what they ate, where they were found in the world, how they protected themselves from their enemies and how they reproduced.
We used various comprehension strategies throughout the lesson and finished off by labelling a diagram and providing an explanation of the armidillo’s features.
Reading aloud – our skills keep growing!
Do you know how important it is to be aware of what you are learning? It means that you know your strengths, and also helps you to make learning goals so your skills can improve!
In Stage 2 reading groups we are learning about ways to develop our reading aloud skills. Great expression, fluency and volume can really make your reading sound interesting. With these factors in mind, we made a ‘Reading Aloud Rubric’ to display in our reading room. Together, we brainstormed what expression, fluency and volume would look like at three levels (not being used well, still developing, and using them effectively). Look below at how we have used the rubric (so far) to reflect on, monitor and improve our reading skills…
Perhaps these hard working students could share their learning goals on the blog by commenting!
Extending thinking in literacy groups
In Stage 3 reading groups with Miss Sallis, students voted to read the story ‘Girl Underground’ by Morris Gleitzman.
Students have been working very hard to develop their thinking through several activities. Here’s what the reading group had to say about these activities and their learning experiences:
Compass Points (By Ebaa, Katarina, Cindy, Gavin and Abudie)
Hey everyone,
In reading groups, we were working on Compass Points where you think about ‘N’ (need to know) ‘E’ (for excited) ‘S’ (for suggestions for moving forward) and ‘W’ (for worrisome ). The point/reason that we started participating in this activity is that in the novel, the main character Bridget comes to a point where she has to make a decision if she should tell her classmates about her family secret.
Everyone enjoyed participating in this activity because we all got to connect with each other and share our ideas as a supportive team.
Connections (By Irene, Elisa and Laura)
We worked in groups to connect parts of ‘Girl Underground’ to ourselves, to the world and to other texts. From this activity we have learnt that there are many similarities between the story ‘Girl Underground’ and ‘Boy Overboard’. It also helped us understand the emotions and actions in the story because we could think of a time when we have previously experienced those things in our life. We enjoyed this activity.
New Words List (By Lamin, Michael, Hinok and Sarah)
In our reading groups, we have made a new words list. Words we see that we don’t understand, we write it down on our list. E.g. apprehending, turnip, striding, quizzically and gratitude.These are interesting words! This list is good because it helps our learning so we can understand new words.
Learning with literacy games
Want to work in small groups and have fun problem solving new words?
Well in reading groups today, Miss Sallis’ reading group of year 2 and 3 students had some time to play some word games after reading.
These are the two games we played:
- Race up the ladder
- Sight word soup
The way you play Race up the ladder is in pairs you pick up a word card and read it. If you can read the word correctly, you move your counter one rung up the ladder. Then it’s your partner’s turn. If you don’t know a word, you can’t move your counter up the ladder. First person to the top wins! If you want to make it more challenging, like our teacher did, you can have a set of word cards that go from fairly easy to tricky – that way, you really have to think when you read.
Sight word soup is a fun game – you sit in a circle in a small group and pass around a plastic bowl. In the bowl are lots of word cards from the story that you are reading. Also in the bowl are cards that have a picture of a soup bowl and the word SOUP on it. Everyone has a turn picking a word card and reading it. You keep all your cards until you pick up a ‘soup’ card – then that means you need to put ALL your cards back in the tin and you don’t win the game.
Look at the pictures of us working together and enjoying these activities.
Fun making fruit salad
We have been learning about fruit in Stage 1 ESL this term. What better way to learn about fruit than to see it, hold it and taste it!
We made a fruit salad this week – we needed bowls, spoons, a knife (used by the teacher only!), and a cutting board. We washed the fruit and Mrs Dennett cut up the oranges, apples and kiwi fruit. We also put grapes and strawberries into our bowls.
We ate our fruit salad and enjoyed it! Yum!
Maybe you can tell us what your favourite fruit is?
Look at the pictures of us having fun learning about fruit…
Literacy Group grapples with Metaphors
Ms McIntosh’s literacy groups are exploring metaphors and developing an understanding of how to use them in literary texts.
Here are two girls working through their understanding. They are justifiably proud of their efforts.
Metaphors are hard . . . but we think we get it! from BSPS on Vimeo.
Newspaper Begins our Wakakirri Story
The Canterbury Express photographer came to our Wakakirri Dance rehearsal.
The paper is going to follow the development of our Dance story, The Reading Bug, from now until performance time in August.
We will create a blog link to the Express so we can all get quick access to our photos!