Beginning the week on Tuesday

After a big day at the swimming carnival yesterday we are only really starting our week today - Tuesday. The first part of the day was 'reading groups' in Mr Smyth's class beginning with another 'super six' comprehension strategy. We learnt about summarising. We learnt that good readers are able to determine the main ideas and put them into their own words. Learners identify and accumulate the most important ideas and restate them in their own words. To practice this we first listened to a story, 'Monsier Albert Rides to Glory' by Peter Smith. We first made predictions about what it was about and then listened to Mr Smyth read it. We stopped along the way to make connections with the story. Quite a few of us had been to Paris, many of us had ridden on bicycles like Monsier Albert and as part of our HSIE unit about ANZAC Day we had all talked about war memorials. So connections were made all around. We then brainstormed the parts of the story we remembered and I wrote them on the board. After that we numbered the information in order that it had happened. Then we wrote the story in six parts, paying attention to the plan we had on the board. We all managed to write down some of our own summary and some of us shared what they had written with the class.

Number groups after recess and then we managed to fit in some work on 'verbs'. Some of us got to stand up and act out a verb which we then had to guess. After that we had to do some work in our grammar book looking at verbs and identifying them in a sentence, choosing the best verb for a sentence and even coming up with our own verbs to describe what you would do with an object.

I was a little disappointed that last minute we missed out on computers as the wall between the computer room and library was taken down today and they hadn't quite finished rewiring computers before it was our computer time. I sent everyone an email with a link to a great site where you can write descriptive phrases on an image by dragging and dropping words. Unfortunatley we didn't get to do that lesson. I wonder who will go on the computer at home and try it out. Remember to google 'nsw student portal' to find our portal and emails! You use the same login as you use at school. Then when you look at the email I sent you will find the link to the site. You could also just click below:

http://www.piclits.com/compose_dragdrop.aspx?PoemTemplateId=541

This afternoon we looked at persuasive writing. We had to use our bodies to agree or disagree on a few different statements by moving to either side of the room. We then had to give our reasons in whole sentences. Here are some of the statements we talked about:

Boys are better than girls.

Animals should not be kept in zoos.

Homework is a waste of time.

Reading books is better than watching the TV.

We should use less energy at school.

Chocolate should be banned.

Students should be able to eat in class

A great day was had by all, but wow, we were very busy!