Mr Johnson- Grade 5.

Weekly Overview:

Apologies for not quite keeping up with the blog guys! lots of grading to do and planning for lessons!

Grade 5:

After Mondays spelling words and creative writing grade 5 moved on in their literacy studies while exploring MUMMIFICATION! After researching HOW it happened each group is going to produce their own 'Horrible Histories' episode to be filmed. The lesson objective surrounded the concept of storyboards, their uses and advantages.

During Thursdays lesson we moved on to looking at PARAGRAPH construction, extending on last weeks lesson involving explaining with details. We developed our knowledge by using the 'Burger' method! and used this to complete a paragraph about a particular dinosaur.

Finally on Friday the class were in the computer room developing the first stages of our CORALINE novel study, looking at elements of a study and CHARACTER ANALYSIS.

Grade 6:

Starting the week with our normal spelling words, that afternoon we started our first attempts at timed NARRATIVE pieces inspired by a single illustration.
Later in the week we began looking at different forms of POETRY. To date we have looked at LIMERICKS and HAIKUs as well as SHAPE poems.

During our literacy lessons we examined two short poems including:

THE WATER TRADERS' DREAM

All the water traders
who trade in outer space
talk of a distant planet-
a magical, mystical place
that has seas and seas full of water,
sweet water beyond all worth.
They say that planet is green in the sun
and the name of that planet is Earth.

And the people there drink the water,
they dive and swim in it too.
It falls from the sky in water storms
and it comes in the morning as dew.
That sweet, sweet water is everywhere-
Sweet water! Sweet water of Earth!
And traders say that the people there
have no idea what it's worth.

So, the traders have their earth dreams.
They dream of one silver cup
brought across space from the earthlings
for millions to drink it up.
'Sweet water! Sweet water Sweet water of Earth!
The people there trade it for gold!
They've no idea what water's worth-
just look how much they've sold!'

They dream the dream of a water storm-
surely it would drive you mad
to have a wind-full of water flung in your face,
to sail in it like Sinbad!
Yes, they say there are whole oceans there
where waves break on the shore,
where winds leave water singing
and the sunlight makes it roar!

They say that those who live there
just don't know its true worth.
They say that planet is green in the sun
and the people there call it Earth.

On Thursday we began revising for next weeks skills review.
Finally on Friday we finished watching 'The Secret of Nimh'

Grade 7:

With our FABLES completed and reading to go the grade 7 class began to prepare from reading them to the younger grades this coming week. We discussed delivery method, body language, voice intonation etc and looked at some examples of delivery:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74C65hGTZvM

During Thursdays lesson the group completed a review quiz of the convention lessons we have been working on (These were sent home to get signed) and completed the week by watching some more of the BBC's excellent dramatized version of 'Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl'

Grade 8:

The class have recently been looking in to FOLKTALES and how these differ from other forms of storytelling. In this exploration we have looked at differing tale from differing locations and time eras in order to exam the 'roots' of this particular genre. This included:

Totoro