Reading 6/12 - Godwits

Today for reading we carried on what we did yesterday as we were filling in our question matrix about the Kauaka. THe long picture shown above was our multi-module reading tasks that we had to do. After we did our question matrix we used our prior knowledge to think of ways people travelled overseas today, 30 years ago, and 100 years ago. Later after we made our connections we did some reciprocal reading where we wrote on a piece of paper what our prediction on the story might be. Lastly we had some free time. 

Are pigeons Special or Pests? Reading Follow Up

For the past few weeks, we have been learning about pigeons. One of the things we were also learning while talking about pigeons was to form our own opinion and to say why we felt that way. In the DLO above you will find all our synthesised ideas on pigeons being pests and heroes, how people communicated years ago, and much more. As well as our DLO we have also made a google drawing of all our ideas. You can click on the links to find our what our opinions are.

Quick Draw

Yesterday

Today

Yesterday and today for reading we have been playing this game called Quick Draw. You are given 6 things to draw (not at the same time). For each thing you draw you have about 20 seconds to draw it. The computer on the other hand has to try and guess what it is. This helps you keep awake and is a pretty good warm up to get you focused for your work.

Reading - Practising our Reading Skills

Today for reading our teacher Mrs Linka gave us these games to practising our reading skills we have been learning throughout the year (inferring, synthesising, Questioning, etc). We had to chose three games to play. The 1st game I played was Detective, which is where you are inferring. The second game was practising making connections with the text we read. While the 3rd game I played was just putting sentences together to make sense. 

Recount - That moment I almost Died

Today and yesterday we have been working on a recount story. Our teacher got us into partners (or in 3's) to go back-to-back. When our teacher put the timer on for 15 minutes, we each had a turn writing a sentence. When we finished, we reviewed our work to see if it made sense. This recount I made with my partners Afu and Ma'ata was based on the picture above and we had to retell what happened before or after this event happened. IN our story we were also trying to use similes, hyperbole, personification, and time connectives. To help us write our recount we used TREE (Title, Reveal, Explain, and End).

Reading Follow Up - Pigeons are Special or Pests

These past few weeks we have been reading about pigeon post. This DLO has photo collages on pigeons in Venice and Trafalgar square. We also talked about communication back in the olden days, our main ideas about our audio book we listened to and this blog post two people from last year made, our compare and contrast chart, and our opinions on if pigeons are special or pests. Plus our 25 word summary. Our two learning intentions were 1) to use our prior knowledge to make stronger connections and 2) to identify the main ideas in a text. Our synthesised opinion was that they are half and half. Although they leave feces everywhere and carry very bad diseases, they are also life savers and great messengers full of bravery.

Reading Challenge

Last week, Mrs Anderson put us into reading groups. Next our teacher gave us different challenges we had to complete. Our first challenge was to explain what our story we read was about in 25 words. While Challenge 2  and three was where we read a story and had to fill in the missing words. The story we had to fill the words in for were called Tickling fish, The story of Opo, and Fish. Now today we have just marked our stories. Our learning intention was to follow instructions and making sure we had to read for understanding and meaning. We also practised a skill called Skimming n' Scanning. You use this technique when reading a text or a page of a book or something. Skimming is like a plane, it goes over something once quite quickly. Scanning is like a helicopter, it finds what it is looking for and then hovers over until the info is found.

Stig Wemyss LIVE at Panmure Library

Last Friday most of our school went to the Panmure Library to watch a show hosted by Stig Wemyss. Stig is a narrator for the Andy Griffiths books. One of the books he read to us was called Fly Guy: and the stupid thing. It was about a guy who was doing the 'Chubby Bubby' Challenge against his brother. But then Lisa (the girl he liked) came up to him because she wanted to check his palm. She believed if his palm matched the palm in her book, they would be true mates. Suddenly, he had to sneeze and marsh mellows flew everywhere. He was terribly embarrassed. Everybody thought he was a great narrator. But that was not all... he even got people up to do really funny acts. Some people were sprayed with water, while others had to speak baby talk, and some actually done the chubby bubby challenge! (Afu was the winner). These people who were brave enough to come up was presented one of Stig's CD's. But the most important part was that he encouraged all of us to read books, and to go on borrow box to borrow audio books for free. Later when we thanked him for his awesome show, we went back to school with lots of giggles.

My Porquoi Story

Today I have finally finished my porqoui story. What is a porqoui story you ask? Well, porqoui means 'why' in French, so basically it's a story that tells why or how something has happened. Still don't know? Think about cultural legends that people tell, like Maui and the Sun. That is a porqoui story because it tells how Maui slowed the sun so that we now have time in the day to do  all our stuff. Anyway, this made up porqoui story I wrote was about how Kailao came to Tonga. A week later my teacher told us to work with a critical friend (my critical friend was Mia). On the sides of my story she made comments of where my mistakes were in my writing. I eventually fixed them, and later read her story. An acronym that helped us was DRAFT (Delete, Rearrange, Add, Fix, and Talk). DRAFT (as shown above) helps us proof read ours and other peoples work. The reason why I chose to write about how Kailao came to life was because two ago it was Tongan language week, so this was a way of acknowledging that week.

Word Study Challenge

 This is my second 'Can-Do' task. The task I chose for today was the Word Study Challenge. I thought of 3 words (without using the internet) and researched about them. As you can see, my three words are adjectives. After I researched these words I told the meaning, attributed a picture, made a sentence, and found synonyms for each word. These words would be very helpful for writing a story or report.

Word Cline Challenge

Today I made a word Cline for the words Shy, dark, good, hot, and went. A word Cline is a line that has a list of synonyms for one word, like shy. I had to find found five synonyms for each word that I have chosen. What is good about word clines is that as you go up the line, the synonym for that word gets stronger and stronger in meaning. This was also one of my reading 'Can-do's'. You may see another 'Can-do' activity later.

Read Theory

This is my Read 20 score today. Read Theory is a website that helps with your reading. It also helps you how to understand the questions it gives you about the passage you read. When you get the answer wrong, it gives you an explanation of how you got it wrong and how you could improve the next time you get answered a question like that. I really like this because I improve every time (even if I get some wrong). I recommend this site to anybody who needs help understanding not just the story but the questions they ask you. 

The sons of Ma'afu

This week and last week for reading we read a book called The son of Ma'afu. This a Tongan story about two boys who show disrespect to their dad and the people in the village. They then were sent to two places to get water plus to kill two deadly animals lurking around those places. The Chief's son then learnt their lesson and moved all the way to the sky so they could still be near their father as well as keeping away from their village. Later I made a sketch note in my own words  and pictures about the story.

Sketching-note

Questions

 

This week and last week we have been learning about sketch note. Sketch note is taking notes, but instead of doing loads and loads of paragraphs, you also use pictures, CAPITALS and arrows and so much more. Sketch notes don't have to be perfect, they just have to be there on your paper. Being able to draw pictures helps me make better connections to the topic. And your sketch notes don't have to make sense to anyone but yourself. Our topics we have made sketch notes on were about Questions, Athletic skills, and Rio Olympics 2016. I find sketch note very helpful because of these various reasons.

My Magic Box

This week we have been reading this poem called The Magic Box. Our teacher then told us to make a poem like The Magic Box, but to make it our own. So this is what I came up with. Hope you like it.

The Big Sleepout

Today for reading we were making a DLO on a current event that happened last month. This was called "The Big Sleep Out". I also made a current event DLO when the people were sleeping in cars. This event was to help raise money for the homeless.

Inferring

Today for reading we played a game about inferring. This game is on this website. This game helps with your understanding on inferring and how to do it.

Buddy reading with Room 4 and 3

Today in LS2 we had some children from room 4 and 3 come up to our class. As they entered our classroom, our teacher ordered us to pick a buddy to read with. Ma'ata and I went with a little girl from room 3. We read her a book called "Just a Bush". She was a very good reader. It was a really good way to help them read.

PBS Character Parade

Today our school had a great Book Character Parade. What is a Character Parade you ask? Well, it is sort of when you dress like a character from a book. It can even be one of your favourite books. One of our teachers, Ms Maude, was the organizer of this years Character Parade. The purpose of this event was to bring books alive for the younger students and juniors. I dressed up as a witch from a book called The Worst Witch. My friend also joined me and came as a cat. I thought everybody had a fantastic time.

Map challenges

Today for reading I played called Deduction. It is a map game where you will be asked follow the instructions to get to a certain place. I got 100 % for all the map challenges I finished.