Ah, summer! There may be a few days to go, but our thoughts are rapidly turning towards revising our key skills over the long summer break: full details of the Year Five Summer holiday homework - complete with useful links and Bald Worm video mini-guides -can be found on our pupil wiki!
(Image by ThinhHoang; used under Creative Commons agreement)
We don't always need to plan by writing. Visual learners may benefit from planning by drawing a story map or a sketch.
Task: Please complete your Heath Robinson sketch and write a six-eight line description of the machine, using all of Bald Worm's descriptive techniques:
Feeling clever: Use Lemony Snicket's writing style when describing the machine
We'll be using this description in a full Snicket story tomorrow!
(Image by X; used under Creative Commons agreement)
Falcons Girls know that 'every word counts' when writing a story. We're going to test this out with our first annual Bald Worm Twitter Writing Competition - and best of all, your parents can take part, too!
Homework: Draft your Bald Worm Twitter Writing Competition entry. You may find it easiest to draft on Word, and keep track of characters at the bottom of the screen. Remember, every word counts.
Due: Friday.
P.S. Year 5 studied the writing of Lemony Snicket over the weekend. Listen to their analysis of Lemony Snicket's prose style on a special eduboo podcast:
We're just days away from Residential Week! During our time away we're going to be visiting Taffy Thomas. We love stories at FSG, so this visit should be a real treat! Visit his website here to learn more about this brilliant storyteller. Check out his amazing 'tale coat' here and learn the story of the tale coat here.
Why not think of some questions we can ask - and we'll try and record some of his answers as an special eduboo and post them up on the blog!
Weekend Homework: Be prepared to (a) give your Shakepeare PowerPoint presentation next week; (B) hand in your second project - either the Shakepeare Research Project or your Passport to the World project - next Thursday.
Year Five
There are some things that should never be attempted...like writing in the style of Lemony Snicket. I love Lemony Snicket: he is such a witty, clever writer.
Homework: Please complete the 'Writing Style' sheet for Lemony Snicket.
P.S. Do you like the music from the Lemony Snicket storytapes? The music is by The Gothic Archies. Here is another Snicket-inspired song:
Falcons Girls love poetry! This week we've been enjoying the poems of William Wordsworth. Here's today's poem:
BEHOLD her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland Lass! Reaping and singing by herself; Stop here, or gently pass! Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain; O listen! for the Vale profound Is overflowing with the sound.
No Nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands Of travellers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands: A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings?— Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago: Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been, and may be again?
Whate'er the theme, the Maiden sang As if her song could have no ending; I saw her singing at her work, And o'er the sickle bending;— I listen'd, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, 30 The music in my heart I bore, Long after it was heard no more.
Falcons Girls love poetry; William Wordsworth loved nature. The third poem in William Wordsworth week is 'The World is Too Much With Us'
The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.
A mini saga is a piece of writing which has exactly fifty words - not 49, not 51 - exactly fifty words! (Not including the title). A mini saga has to tell a complete story with a beginning, middle and end. The best mini sagas end with a clever twist.
Mini sagas force you to be creative - the constraints imposed by having to write exactly fifty words makes you think about every single word that you write. There are some good tips here.
Task: Please write a second draft of your favourite mini saga. We'll record them through audioboo as special mini saga eduboos tomorrow!
Falcons Girls love poetry - and William Wordsworth loved nature. Listen to his prayer, My heart leaps up when I behold
MY heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began, So is it now I am a man, So be it when I shall grow old Or let me die! The child is father of the man: And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.
Falcons Girls love poetry! Our poem today is about London - Upon Westminster Bridge by William Wordsworth EARTH has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!
(P.S. This mini-podcast was recorded through Audioboo. We'll be using this Web 2.0 tool in class soon, so you can share your creativity with the world!)
We are going to study 'responding to/continuing a passage' over the next two weeks. These are stinky questions set by the Grumpy Examiner because it makes it easier for him to compare pupils.
You'll enjoy this - we conclude William Blake week with 'The Schoolboy':
I love to rise in a summer morn, When the birds sing on every tree; The distant huntsman winds his horn, And the skylark sings with me: O what sweet company!
But to go to school in a summer morn, - O it drives all joy away! Under a cruel eye outworn, The little ones spend the day In sighing and dismay.
Ah then at times I drooping sit, And spend many an anxious hour; Nor in my book can I take delight, Nor sit in learning's bower, Worn through with the dreary shower.
How can the bird that is born for joy Sit in a cage and sing? How can a child, when fears annoy, But droop his tender wing, And forget his youthful spring!
O father and mother if buds are nipped, And blossoms blown away; And if the tender plants are stripped Of their joy in the springing day, By sorrow and care's dismay, -
How shall the summer arise in joy, Or the summer fruits appear? Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy, Or bless the mellowing year, When the blasts of winter appear?
One of the greatest challenges at 11+ is to understand the comprehension passage. There are two ways to get better at this: listen to Bald Worm's reading the paper teacher podcast and...read more books!
Task: Please read the 'Midsummer Nights Dream' and 'Macbeth' short stories from Geraldine McCaughrean's Stories from Shakespeare.
(Image by Thomas Geezer; used under Creative Commons agreement)
Clive James is a brilliant writer. This is what he has to say about reading:
It was my third year at Sydney Technical High School [in Australia], and our English class was being taken by a history teacher while our regular teacher was away ill. Though he conspicuously wore the first Hush-puppies I had ever seen, I can't remember the history teacher's name. But I can still remember everything he said. To keep us in order, he had been asking us what we read at home. I said that I had been reading the collected works of Erle Stanley Gardner. He said there was nothing wrong with that, but that the whole secret with what he called 'sludge fiction' was to enjoy it while you built up the habit of reading, and then move on to something hard. The very idea that there might be something interesting further up the road had not occurred to me before that day.
Have you been enjoying William Blake week? Today's poem by the mad artist and poet is The Lamb, from Songs of Innocence:
Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee Gave thee life & bid thee feed. By the stream & o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing wooly bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice! Little Lamb who made thee Dost thou know who made thee
Little Lamb I'll tell thee, Little Lamb I'll tell thee! He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a Lamb: He is meek & he is mild, He became a little child: I a child & thou a lamb, We are called by his name. Little Lamb God bless thee. Little Lamb God bless thee.
(Photo by AJC1; used under Creative Commons agreement)
Bald Worm loves poetry! Today's poem in William Blake week is The Tyger, written in 1789.
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of thine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art. Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
Every so often the Grumpy Examiner might set a non-fiction passage in the 11 +. Don't forget you can learn all about how to attempt comprehensions at Bald Worm's Comprehension Blog
Task: Please complete the 'Singing for Mrs Pettigrew' 11+-style comprehension. Give yourself 40 minutes.
(Image by Ayumi; used under Creative Commons agreement)
Task: Please (i) select your country, (ii) locate it on a map & (iii) produce a front cover for your project using images/media of your choice, e.g. computer; cut and paste pictures; hand drawn. No 'scribbled' pencil crayons or scruffy felt tip, please. Produce something that you would be proud to share with the class!
(Image by hjl; used under Creative Commons agreement)
