Happy New Year!

I hope you've all had a brilliant Xmas, and are looking forward to next term. You'll find all the answers to the comprehensions up on 'How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Comprehension', and I'll be addding more tasks to the blog as we build up to the L.E.H. exam!

Cat Pictures

Angry Cat Picture

Write your story based on this picture and email it to me! Don't forget to include the 'Messi wiggle'!

How To Leave a Comment

Some of you have been visiting the blog and can't remember how to leave comments. Here's a quick reminder how:

At the bottom of each post you will find the word 'Comments' in green. Click on 'Comments'.

You should now be able to see all the comments left for that category and be able to leave yours in the section entitled "Post a Comment".

Tell me how you're getting on with your writing over the Xmas break - and I'll write a response if you've got a problem with any of the tasks

Merry Xmas

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Have a great holiday! Keep visiting the blog throughout the holidays for homework hints and fun stuff - oh, and don't forget to tell your friends and family about the Year Six Story Structure podcasts. Just click on the green 'podcast!' click to listen!

The Falcons Year Six Pupil Podcast: Story Structure

This is an historic moment, girls! The brilliant Year Six have created the first ever Falcons School for Girls pupil podcast!
To listen, just click on the green link in 'podcasts!' box at the side of the page.

A podcast is an online radio show. Year Six used an Apple Mac programme, Garageband, to create their own podcast.

This podcast is all about story structure. You can learn more about story structure by clicking here.

You can also here the girls talking about Kinaesthetic learning, and listen to their 'Parts of Speech' clapping rhyme, the funky 'Comma song' and Kung-fu punctuation.

Want to create your own podcast? The exciting news is that both Year 5 and 4 will get the chance to create their own online radio show next term! Creating a podcast is brilliant fun, and it helps develop your auditory (speaking and listening) skills.

Feel free to tell the girls how much you enjoyed the show by clicking on 'comments'

Year 5 Homework - Secret HQ

After Xmas we are going to be looking at spy novels, because this is a brilliant way to learn about using suspense and action (techniques like suspense and action are great for making you think about your prose style)

Novelists often use models to help them 'picture' a location in their imagination (a bit like playing in a doll house!)

To prepare for this work, I would like you to design and build a secret hq.





Build a model of a secret hq. Here are some of the things you could include:

* Banks of computer screens
* A giant map of the world
* Secret doors or compartments
* Torture chamber (yuck!)
* Sharks!
* Henchmen/goons
* Evil pets
* Rockets
* Dwarf servant
* Desk
* Armchair with buttons

How you build the model is up to you! Here are some of the materials you might choose to use:
* Cardboard boxes painted over
* Sticky-back plastic
* Wood
* Paper mashed and glued
* Washing up bottles
* Model Paint

This video will give you some ideas (don't make Tracy Island, though! Just use the same techniques!)



Design the hq on paper before you start to construct it!

Be as imaginative as you can! Bring your model into class on your first day back after the holidays! We are going to base a series of stories in this location, so do a great job! There will be a small prize for the best model!

We'll photograph the models and stick them on the blog for the world to enjoy.

Year 6 girl on....Suspense!

Suspense is a special baldworm skill to really get the reader involved in the story. Suspense is used to build up the main part of the story. When using suspense you should use the following skills to create it:

1. Impact sentences( 3-4 words).
2. Fragments ( 1-2 words)
3. Having the character call out " Come out!"
4. Shown feelings.
5. Having the character reassuring themselves " Everything is going to be alright"
6. Creepy noises
7. Strange movements
8. Shadows and the cold
9. Have the characters heart beat

Snap. I spun around. Nothing. The ghostly wind howled past my face like whip lashes. The full-moon shone in the dark night sky. My stomach twisted into knots as I heard a wolf howl in the distance. I pulled my hood over my head and zipped up my coat up to my frozen chin. Bats fluttered around a lifeless tree. Snap.
" I will be ok. Its nothing ," I thought. I could sense that someone was following me. My heart pounded in its cage like a wild lion.
Snap. My head rolled.
"Maybe I am dreaming?" I thought.
" Come out now whoever you are. I know you are there!" I shouted. No reply. My voice just echoed in the forest. Something was hissing like a smoke bomb. But where?

Did you realise this author has used all of the skills while making a flow in the story?

By Clare Gibson and KD275

Year 6 - Story Structure revision

L.O. To revise story structure

Homework: Write your own version of a story entitled 'The Rose-Tinted Glasses'

Rose-tinted glasses (British, American & Australian, British)
If someone looks at something through rose-tinted glasses, they see only the pleasant parts of it, e.g. She has always looked at life through rose-tinted glasses.

Don't forget to follow our story structure. Revise it by clicking here

Oh, and keep your eyes peeled for the 'Year Six podcast' - coming to this site very soon!

Year 6 - Carols

Please read your carol Bible reading to someone at home.



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Year Six - Podcast

Finish your script and be ready to start recording the first FSG podcast tomorrow!

Year 5 Non-fiction - Using Connectives in a Playscript

L.O. To include connectives in a discursive playscript



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Connectives are important tools for structuring your essays. You can use them in all your writing (including History, Geography, Science, Music etc.). You must include the following playscript in your discursive playscript:

firstly,

secondly,

thirdly,

in conclusion

therefore,

as we have seen,

Feeling clever? Try to include the following connectives

however,
critics of this plan have argued...
nevertheless,
although

Homework: Write another playscript discussion, using as many of our connectives as you can! The topic is: ‘Children should be seen and not heard’ Should children always be quiet and well behaved? Should they give their opinions?’ Please highlight the connectives

P.S. Don't forget your spelling cards!

Year 5 - Complete 'Apostrophe Common Errors' Cards

Please complete the 'common error' cards, ready to bring them in on Thursday for the game we're going to play with them! Check you've got 'your' and 'you're' right!

Click here to remind yourself of the original task!

Year Three - Publishing a Final Draft

L.O. To understand that a final draft is the 'finished' story, but that it can always be improved.

We planned and wrote a dinosaur story, and then improved it with a second draft. We are now going to write this story up on A4, ready to publish it in the classroom - but we can still make improvments (such as adding more shown feelings) as we copy out our second draft. Watch this video for further details:



Learn more about shown feelings by clicking here.

Homework: Copy out your dinosaur story, adding more shown feelings as you go. You may illustrate it with pencil crayon drawings, but don't spend too long on this - the most important thing is to make sure your writing is as good as it can possibly be. Due: Friday. We'll celebrate and share our work next Tuesday!

Year Six - Podcast Script

L.O. To revise story structure

We are creating a podcast. This will be hosted on baldworm.blogspot.com, allowing everyone – from Year Three to your Gran in Germany – to hear your work! Brilliant!

We will record the podcast on Thursday and Friday. Remember to think about where you will include music and sound fx; use humour to grab your listener’s attention!

Here is an example of a podcast script:

SALLY: Welcome to the Year Six Story Structure Podcast, in association with baldworm.co.uk

HIBA: We are going to teach you all about how to structure a story – and they’ll be lots of jokes and fun along the way!

SALLY: We’ll be giving you lots of examples, so you know exactly how to use the writer’s techniques we’ll be talking about!

HIBA: Here is an example of a brilliant opening line: “Don’t you dare move a muscle, or I’ll blow yer brains out!”

(Gun shot sound FX)

SALLY: Brilliant! But which writer’s techniques did she use?

Homework: Write some adverts for the podcast, using rhetorical techniques: rhetorical questions, positive language, ‘experts say’, and making the product - shampoo? chocolate? a car? - sound cool. Write it as a playscript, and don’t forget to think about sound fx. (You may find it useful to listen to Capital or Virgin before you start, so you can get an idea about how adverts use humour to grab the listener’s attention. Your advert should last thirty seconds or so. Write it as a script

We’ll only have time to use three of the adverts, so make yours as brilliant as you can!

Year 6 - Comprehension

Complete 11+ 'room' comp. Use the stopclock below to time yourself - 40 min. Your challenge? Make sure you finish all of the questions in 40 min!

Year 5 Comprehension - Italics

L.O. To understand that writer's use italics for (i) emphasis and (ii) thoughts

I love Sherlock Holmes!Click here to learn more about the world's greatest detective.



Complete the Holmes comprehension. Don't forget to click here to revise the questions about an author's use of italics.

You should also click here to revise P-E-Eing all over the page.

Year 4 Creative Writing - The First 15 lines of a Short Story

L.O. To understand that the first 1/2 page of a short story needs an exciting opening, a description of the location, dialogue and a description of one of the characters.

We have been learning about how to organise - structure - our ideas. A short story isn't a book - you've only got one-and-a-half sides of A4, so we are learning the most effective way to organise our ideas (we'll mess with this structure once we know it like the back of our hands). You can learn lots more about story structure by clicking here.

Try not to wait for me to tell you what to learn next - use baldworm.co.uk to learn all about 'skills' and 'story structure'

Homework: Write the first 15 lines of an 'Escape' story. Make sure you follow our story structure.

Feeling clever? Remember to show, not tell! (Learn all about this by clicking here.)