Student Teachers!

Today Zara & Mairi taught Room 9 how to use Storybird.  The girls taught themselves how to use the Web 2.0 writing tool with only a 'wee' tiny bit of help from me!  I was amazed at their wonderful teaching skills!  They were very confident at standing in front of the class, explained how to do things clearly and confidently answered questions from the class.  Above is one of their stories they have created on Storybird.
The big dream by Zara9 on Storybird

Listen To Our Stories!

Watch this space! This week we will record some of our adventure stories. We hope you enjoy listening to them!

Writing Exciting Adventure Stories

In Room 9 we have been writing stories.  First we read lots of stories and had lots of discussion about what was in each story and what made them great!  Then we had a go at writing stories with Miss Watts' help.  Today we brainstormed all the things we needed to make a great story!

Story Structure:

1. Title - a short bit of information about the story
2. Orientation - describe who, when, where and why (don't give too much away)
3. Complication - describe the problem, ask a question to create a climax
4. Resolution - solve the problem, describe a happy or a sad ending 

WOW words

1. Onomatopoeia 
2. Alliteration
3. Exciting verbs
4. Adverbs - describe how, when or where the verbs happen
5. Adjectives - describe what nouns (things/objects or people) look, feel or sound like

Use punctuation

1. Ellipsis... to create a pause make it exciting and create tension
2. Exclamation marks  - to make it exciting 
3. Full stops & capital letters

Type of sentences

1. Choose different words to start sentences
2. Short sentences to create excitement and tension
3. Long sentences to describe characters, setting, action, emotions, feeling (can be short)

Junior School Production

We are very excited because our mums and dads are coming to watch our production tonight. So far we have done a dress rehearsal and two performances.  It was cold outside when we had to wait our turn to go on stage!   Zara and I are chickens.  We have yellow rubber gloves on our feet and we are pretending that they are chicken feet.  It looks very funny and feels a bit uncomfortable to wear!  I am one of the main characters, Farmer Mac!  I thought my face paint looked funny but actually it looks awesome!  It was kind of hard and kind of easy remembering my lines.  I have LOTS of lines!  We are both having so much fun!  Take a look at our video.

Science Experiment

On Wednesday last week Room 9 did an experiment about warm and cold.  We put a bag in another bag and put cotton wool in betwen the bags. We also did it with butter.  Then we put water and ice in an ice cream tub.  First we put the cotton wool one and an empty bag in the water and ice.We all took turns to put our hands inside the bags.  Then we had to tick our sheets to explain which one kept our hands the warmest.  (Caleb and Mairi)

Watch the movie that Nikita and Zoe made to share our learning.

Watch our voicethread to listen to our predictions and explanations about what we have learnt.  We tried to use extended abstract thinking to link our experiment with the real world.  We wanted to find our how animals survive against all the odds in a cold environment. (Tyler and Miss Watts)

Key Competency: Thinking

Team Member

We looked at the role of Team Member.  We think that a Team Member would:

• Join in
• Be a good listener
• Use their manners

A team member would say:

• "Do you want to be in our group?"
• "Please can I have a go?"
• "Can I help you?"

Managing Self

In the morning we get organised and ready for the start of  the school day.  That means we have to get our pencil, our book bag and our homework book plus our minute maths ready.  When the bell rings we sit at  our desk and read a book.  That is how we get organisd everymorning.  In the afternoon before we go  home we tidy our desks and get ready to go home at home time.