Writing

__**//Term 4//**

Poetry__

[|Syllabification link] - an excellent practise activity site. __Persuasive Writing__

"Should fishermen use nets?" || "Should fishermen use nets?" || The children listened to an article about a seal being tangled in a fishing net. They then brainstormed in groups their thoughts about the nets and the possible effects they might have on the marine life. They then completed PMI charts which helped them to form their ideas as well as giving them possible reasons to help justify their stance. They had to pick for or against and create a letter to the editor aiming to change their opponents minds. As the teacher I took the stance of the opponent and kept posing more questions so they could then go away and research information to clarify, justify and back their stance. || "Should we have to do homework?" || "Should we have to do homework?" || The students used a T chart to help them record ideas and their opinions about home work. One side of the T chart has reasons for doing homework and the other side of the T has the reasons for not having to do homework. Several students believe it is important ||
 * Week 1
 * Week 2

If you would like to blog us with some of your opinions go onto our class blog and contact us.

__Term 3__


 * Report Writing || Police Dogs || Two Hamilton Police Dog Handlers visited with their police dogs Max and Ed. We found out many facts about the day in the life of a Police Dog and the training they had to go through. ||
 * Narrative || Deep down I knew... || We have followed up our fairytale writing by developing individual stories using the beginning 'Deep down I knew...". The children have uploaded them onto "Our Stories" page and have had feedback from some of our online audience. ||
 * Procedural Writing ||  || we have used our art inquiry to help practise our procedural writing. We had to explain each step clearly so that our audience could follow the instructions and recreate what we were doing. ||

During Term 2 Room 5 Kea will be focusing on Writing Narratives - modern fairy tales. We will be learning about the process of writing a fairy tale and sharing them online. Each student will be scanning their drafts and uploading them onto our wikipage for feedback/ feedforward.

To read the children's stories click on the button ''Our Stories' then click on the 'pdf' file beside the student's name. Their stories will be uploaded by Tuesday. We would very much like you to share the feedback online, and we will be sending you some instructions on how to do this.

Please give them suggestions about what they might be able to add to make the setting more interesting or easy to visualise. The children would appreciate it if you could be quite specific, so that they can reflect on your suggestions. The more feedback the students get the easier it will be for them to make changes in their work.

Make a suggestion || "I like the way you have described the ..., I can see .." "Could you explain a bit more about ..." Or " I'd like to see, feel or hear more about what the setting (be specific) ||
 * How can you help with their writing? || We would like you to: ||
 * We are focusing on writing a descriptive setting. || read it and try to visualise the setting. ||
 * Comments: Give a positive comment

Students can view some great traditional [|fairy tales] Have a look at some of the stories on this [|kidsite]. The links are fantastic. media type="custom" key="3719897"

We will also be looking at instructional writing throughout our inquiry process.

We are learning how to write Reports. We know that they are non-fiction (factual) so we cannot put in our opinion. We also know we __must__ acknowledge our sources where we found some information.

Before we can write a report we need to research it and plan its format. The key headings we are using are: Classification (What it is) Location (Where it lives - Habitat) Description (What it looks like) Dynamics (What is does/ behaviour, etc) Keep an eye out in the class page on each child's wiki for their reports.

Poetry is part of our writing programme. Thanks to the children in Room 5 I was inspired to create a poem about them and our wonderful school, While it is a work in progress the children have already taken ownership of it.

Report Writing begins next week. What animals will we pick from the zoo visit? Will it be .....

or

or will it be ....

or

We have been busy during Literacy time. So far we have written about ourselves, our similarities and differences and our holidays. We have been focussing on using capital letters and fullstops properly. We made our own Capital Letter Check Sheet which is in our literacy practice book. We have seen a youtube clip showing us what a real Kea acts like. Then we had work in groups to come up with some adjectives that describe how we think the Kea behaves. Below are just a few:

smart, clever, colourful, cheeky, intelligent, mischievious, funny, naughty, inquisitive.

We think the Kea does lots of things we do so we are going to compare Room 5 Kea with the Hamilton Zoo Kea. Watch out for more words and there may even be some reports to share.