Bald Worm Quick Revision Guides: Your Teacher on Your iPod!

Odd, isn't it? Your teacher explains something once - for ten minutes - and then you're supposed to remember what you were taught forever!

At Falcons Girls, we are using new technology to help you revise at home. Listen to this Bald Worm quick revision guide on suspense. It is just like you're back in the classroom!

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Want your own copy of this podcast to enjoy on your ipod? Click here to download the file to your computer!

Year Six Assembly: Learn Your Words!

We love musical learning!
Please complete the Assembly task:
1. Finish writing up playscript in your Comprehension book;
2. Learn your words by heart!

Due: Tomorrow

Year Five: Suspense...with paragraphs!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

What do you think of our cool Animoto video? This combines photographs of all of our secret spy bases. We'll be writing stories about these bases - using our suspense techniques - over the course of the next couple of weeks!

Imagine you are waiting in the rain for a fellow spy to come and hand you a secret briefcase...when suddenly you feel like you are being watched...

Focus on:
* Using impact sentences
* Short paragraphs

Feeling clever? I want to see 'commas before connectives', please!

Don't forget that you can learn more about writing a brilliant suspense scene at http://www.baldworm.co.uk.

Year Six and Five Spelling Homework

I'm feeling generous this week, so no Prose homework - focus on finishing your Comprehension & beginning the Spelling sentences.

**Year Five**
This week's spellings are words ending in 'u' and 'i'.

Test next Tuesday. Don't forget to write an example sentence for every spelling word. Don't know the word? Look it up with a dictionary, please!

**Year Six**
Your spellings are words you need to describe a location (a setting). Why not play a Spelling City game to help you learn these spellings?

Test next Tuesday. Don't forget to write an example sentence for every spelling word. Don't know the word? Look it up with a dictionary, please!

P.S. Year Five and Six comprehension homework due on Wednesday.

Year 5 Comprehension: Fight for this Mark (The Writing Comprehension Answers Song)

Download the lyrics to 'Fight for this Mark (The Answering Comprehension Questions Song) from my area at box.net. This is an example of musical learning: using songs to help us remember key facts and skills.

Task: Please complete the H.I.V.E. comprehension. Don't forget to P-E-E all over the page!

Due: Don't forget that comprehension is due on a Wednesday, so you don't need to rush it after Netball training.

Still stuck on P-E-Eing? Watch this:

Year Six Weekend Homework: Redraft the 'Describing a Character's Appearance' Timed Writing Task

Please redraft your describing a character timed writing task. Write 1 1/2 sides of A4. Make sure you look at my comments on your last story before you start!

Listen to my teacherboo:

Year Five: Writing a Suspense Scene

Homework explained here:


A couple of videos to inspire your writing!

Year Five and Six Composition Homework

Year Six
Please complete writing up your Montague story for display. Use your best handwriting - and make sure that you check any spellings that you are unsure about with a dictionary.

You may choose to decorate the border in the style of the Montague illustrations. Lead pencil only, please.

Due: Thursday.

Year Five
Please read through the Bald Worm on Suspense pack you were given in class. Try to summarise it in your own words.

Watch the Bald Worm video mini-guide for more help:

Year Five and Six Spelling and Prose

Year Five
Spelling: Please learn the 'words ending in 'o' spellings for our test next Tuesday. Don't forget to write your example sentences!

Task: Having learnt the 'Comma Song' words, try putting them to a memorable piece of music, like the videos we watched in class. Write a tune yourself or set it to a song we all know. Create an earworm!

Year Six
Spelling: Please learn the 'describing an appearance' spellings for our test next Tuesday.

Task: Make sure you write an example sentence for all of the spelling words.
Example sentences due tomorrow; test of spelling words next Tuesday.

Year Five and Six 11+ Comprehension

Two videos you really must view:
* Bald Worm's guide to Reading a Comprehension paper
* The Falcons Rules

Year Six
Please complete the 'Clare getting off the bus' comprehension. Don't forget the need to read closely.

Please complete the 'self-assessment for self-improvement' before you hand in your work!

Due: Wednesday

Year Five
Please complete the 'Spy in the market' comprehension. Don't forget to P-E-E all over the page.

Please complete the 'self-assessment for self-improvement' before you hand in your work!

Due: Wednesday

New Bald Worm Movie: Reading Comprehension

Click here to see an all-new Bald Worm video mini-guide on reading comprehension!

Year Six Weekend Homework: Revising Description

Please redraft (write a second draft) of your Tales from the Black Ship Timed Writing task. Don't forget to pay close attention to the targets I set you in your last lesson!

Your challenge is to use at least 5 of Bald Worm's descriptive techniques

Revise by watching this Bald Worm video mini-guide:


Don't forget to complete the self-assessment for self-improvement sheet!

P.S. Spelling City list for our comprehension vocabulary is here.

Year Five Weekend Composition: Spy Base

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Next week you are beginning your Spy unit.

We are going to write suspense scenes set in your secret spy base. Learn more about suspense here.



Novelists often use models to help them 'picture' a location in their imagination (a bit like playing in a doll house!); I would like you to design and build a secret hq for a bad guy.





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!)



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

Be as imaginative as you can! Bring your model into class next Thursday! 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 pupil wiki for the world to enjoy, and then write scenes and stories set in this location!

Due: Try to bring in next Wednesday, but if you need until a week on Monday that will be fine.

Here is one of the bases from last year.

P.S. Learn all about our suspense techniques:

Year Five Planning for Conflict

Task: Please write three different 'mouse' hand plans for one of the five forms of conflict we studied in class.

Due: Thursday

Visit the Year Five 'planning a story' section on the pupil wiki here: http://fsg.wikispaces.com/Year+5+Planning+2008-9

Year Six Sherlock Holmes Mindmap

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Over the next two weeks we are going to secure our knowledge of how to structure the first 15 lines of a short story.

Homework: Visit the Falcons Girls Sherlock Holmes page on our brilliant pupil wiki: http://fsg.wikispaces.com/Year+Six+Holmes Do a little more research, and then create a second, full colour version of your Sherlock Holmes MindMap.

The 'strands':
* Sherlock
* Dr. Watson
* The author
* (If you're feeling clever) Deduction

Due: Thursday

Year 5 and 6 Spelling and Prose

Year Five
Spelling
Next week's spelling are 'words ending in a'. Test next Tuesday! Don't forget to complete the 'look-say-cover-write-check' sheet and write the example sentences.

Prose
Task: Please learn the words to the 'Comma Song'. We will be recording our own version of this classic tune next week! (Due: Next Tuesday)

Comprehension homework due in Wednesday

Year Six
Spelling
Your next spellings concern comprehension vocabulary. Test next Tuesday! Don't forget to complete the 'look-say-cover-write-check' sheet and write the example sentences.

Task: Please write a description of a monster's cave. Write 8 sentences. The challenge? Every sentence must contain a bracketing comma, e.g. The bat, who had lived in the cave for centuries, liked to hang about all evening.

Useful words:
* remember
* of course
* nearby
* there
* you see
* for example

Due: Wednesday

Don't forget your comprehension, too!

Year Five & Six Comprehension

Year Five
Please complete the 'Daydreamer' comprehension.

Due: Wednesday

Year Six
Please complete the 'Willie & the Bone' comprehension.

Due: Wednesday

Don't forget that tomorrow is your spelling test!

- Learn more about writing a brilliant short story in the London Day 11+ examinations at http://www.baldworm.co.uk

Year 5 and 6 Weekend Composition Homework

Year Five
Please create a colourful, neat version of one of your hand plans:
* Include your brainstorm
* Draw round your hand with a pencil
* Write in the plan with a pen

Use pencil crayons to decorate

Don't forget to name your work.

Keep it really neat - we'll be displaying this work in class.

Listen to the Year Five 'Fab Four' eduboo here.

Year Six
Please write an improved second draft of the 'Uncle Montague' story you wrote in Timed Writing. Don't forget to include plenty of description.

Learn more about planning a story here.

Due: Monday

Young Bond's Charlie Higson says...

Uncle Montague's Tales Of Terror by Chris Priestley

This one's for the kids. Written in an accessible, cod Victorian style it has a neat framing device. Edgar goes to stay with his uncle in the woods who proceeds to tell him a series of terrifying stories – all the while hinting at some dark secrets of his own. Rest assured, the stories, which all feature a child in some way, are genuinely scary and unsettling and really do get under your skin. They certainly frightened my 10-year-old when I read them to him.

...and Year Six will start reading it on Thursday!

Year Five and Six Spelling and Prose Style: Assessment of Punctuation

Prose Style
Year Five and Six sat a brief assessment of their punctuation, based on this image:


Task: 1. Please write a second draft - have a 'second go' - at the task. Write no more than 15 lines. Remember, I am looking for brilliant, varied punctuation.

2. Please complete the Bald Worm 'self-assessment for self-improvement' sheet.

Spelling
Spelling tests are held on Tuesdays.

Year Five
Your spelling words can be revised at Spelling City. The adding the suffixes 'tion' and 'sion' words can be found here.

Year Six
The 'soft c' revision words can be found at here at Spelling City.

Welcome Back!

It is a new term at West London's Most Creative Preparatory School! We've got a great year in front of us - including the School Play, Residential Week and literally hundreds of fantastic lessons - and we can't wait to get started!

Homework:
Both Year Five and Six were taking part in a 'jigsaw' lesson this morning.

Task: Write up your notes as a one-page mind-map/poster, featuring everything you revised in the lesson about how to tackle a comprehension paper.

Due: Wednesday.