Ben's Week 4 post

This week I have also been reading some of the work of Morris Gleitzman, and have found it to be engaging, but carrying some deeper and more mature themes than I would have predicted. An example of this is the story Bumface (1998), where the absent mother is quite promiscuous, and has multiple children from each of her short term partners. This insight has given me more focus on being thorough in my selection of texts, to make sure they are appropriate for the students I am working with.

In Belly flop (1996), the main character Mitch lives in an area suffering from an eight-year drought. Mitch’s dad, who works for the town’s Bank, has to foreclose on the loans of local farmers and as a result the townspeople loathe Mitch and his family. Mitch is determined to change people’s opinion of him, and decides to become a diving champion as a way of getting people to like him. He petitions his guardian angel, Doug, who no one else believes in, to help him in his quest. the story is well written and keeps the reader interested in the plight of the characters and what will happen next.

Week 3 & 4 Reading + Workshop 4 Discussion!

Week 3 & 4 Reading

Over the past two weeks I have read three of Morris Gleitzman's stories for my Author Study! I read, Then, Toad Surprise and Tickled Onions. I haven't read any of Morris Gleitzman's work before and I have definitely been missing out. The issues he crosses in his stories are somewhat challenging, in Then he approaches the holocaust and living as a jewish child in nazi germany. I really enjoyed this book and wish I'd done somemore research first as I would have read the whole series instead of starting in the middle. Each of the books I read would be fine to use with Year 4's and upwards as some of the issues raised may be a bit sensitive for younger children.

Week 4 Workshop Discussion

This week we were asked to bring in 3 different genre's of text whether they be from a newspaper, magazine or book. Between our group we had a procedure and an information report/reccount. We analysed these articles in regards to the tone and what made them a information report/reccount (retelling an encounter with elephants - factual) and what made them a procedure (ingredients, method).

We then went on to discuss Activity Two of page 269. We said that the lack of spelling, punctuation and overall grammer of the paragraph took away from the meaning of the paragraph. A valid point was made that as a teacher do we pay attention to the text content or the form? As teachers it is important to store information on each students, for example if a student struggles with paragraphing or spelling take note of this. Rather than tell the student this is wrong, and this is right, praise them on their content and encourage them with spelling and paragraphing and then run a later lesson on paragraphing and spelling to address the technicalities.

Catherine- Week 4 Possum Magic

Possum Magic is a fiction picture book written by Mem Fox and Illustrated by Julie Vivas. Possum Magic is about two possums in the Australian Bush. Grandma Poss placed an invisible spell on little Hush so she didn’t get hurt. Hush eventually wants to be able to see what she looks like and is unable to as Grandma Poss cannot remember how to un-do the spell. Grandma Poss remembers it is something to do with human food and decides to travel Australia with Hush to try and make her visible again.

 

Mem Fox uses simple terminology throughout the book and the illustrations demonstrate what the text is saying which would engage students. This is why I think it would be great teacher resource in a junior primary classroom, with a specific focus on a year 2-3 level. Possum Magic would be great for this age group as they could be asked basic questions along the way, starting with asking for predictions from the front cover.  This children’s book follows the general narrative structure with a setting, action, climax, solution and conclusion.  Possum Magic uses verbs and opposites throughout the text. It also features rhythm and repetition in some parts, allowing the reader to gather a sense of story and make predictions. The illustrations also allow the reader to make predictions as they are whole page illustrations and you need to turn the page to find out what happens next.

 

Catherine

Ben's week 3 Post.

A book I was reading this week that I would like to share with you is the book by Katheryn Cave called One child one seed.

It is a text aimed at junior primary children and is a book with a real life narrative surrounding the young girl Nothando and her family.

The story follows the families daily activities around planting, tending, picking and preparing pumpkins into their evening meal. The book also is written as a learning text around the skill of counting, and it is written with a rising number on each page embedded in the story e.g one seed, two hand to plant the seed etc. The final pages have seeds laid out in  table for children to practice their counting. 

The book is designed to raise awareness of different cultures, and give insights into the living situations of children in other countries. I believe the books other purpose is to allow children from Western countries who may not have experienced home grown food, the chance to see food being grown and harvested in this way.

Ben

Catherine Week 3- Uno's Garden

Uno’s Garden is a children’s story book written by Graeme Base. This book is about Uno’s love for the forest and how he decides to live there. He counts the animals he sees along the way. As the story continues the forest changes as it is introduced to society and his much loved forest turns into a village, town and finally a city. The people who lived in the city were saddened by the boring city life and decided to leave. Uno found the city dark and abandoned. He had a garden which lived on as Uno didn’t. His children continued to care for the little collection of trees and plants and slowly the forest returned and they began to keep a diary of the things they discovered.

 

Uno’s Garden would be a very good teacher resource as it is an interactive story book with beautiful illustrations which allow the reader to search through the setting to find a certain amount of hidden creatures. This is the type of book that would be used in a lower primary setting as the illustrations would appeal to younger students and the creatures in the book are made up words and would be hard for a beginning reader to pronounce. This is why I think a young student would have trouble reading this story alone and the teacher reading this book to the class would show off this books full potential. Uno’s Garden would help to teach students about the role people play in keeping the environment healthy and making sure all of the resources are not used up so they can naturally re-generate and keep the eco-system alive.

 

Catherine

Wk 3 Group Discussion by Catherine

Week 3 Group Discussion by Catherine Smart

Workshop 6/8/2012

 

In today’s tutorial we discussed Gamble and Yates’ basic narrative structure. The way in which this is implemented into today’s classroom children follow the structure as a template which doesn’t encourage good/creative writing. I was mentioned how the books we had read this week for our reading plan followed the basic narrative structure with a setting, complication, climax, solution and resolution. We were also introduced to a ‘new language’ of English terminology and it is important to understand these terms and be able to explain them in your own way rather than reciting a dictionary meaning. We went on to discuss what is meant by 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd person. We were then given a number of questions to discuss our groups which made us think about narrative structure, basic plots, verb tenses and some English terminology more in depth. The main focus of this discussion was around the Gamble and Yates reading and looking at specific sections of this reading in relation to the class questions.

Catherine

Ben's Week 2 Post

Hello again,

Firstly an admission that this weeks books were actually read to my kids during their reading at bed time, but who said killing two birds was a problem.

The first book is Who sank the boat by Pamela Allen.
This is a classic that our kids just can't get enough of.
The suspense that builds through the boat getting more and more weighed down as new animals get on board is well constructed and the kids interact with the Narrator, as it continually asks, do you know who sank the boat? which is of course they do, but they still keep coming back for more.

The second book is Fit for a prince by Jeri Kroll and is a student reader (chapter book) with some pictures, and large font text.
This story is pretty simple and uses the rags to riches plot which we are looking at this week. The maligned and unloved pony in the story (Freddie) has to become the hero when all the other ponies are sick and he has to rescue the king. A cute story that is suitable for junior primary level Yr 1-2. It is well formed but the conflict sections are still very safe to not be scary for the kids.

Thanks for reading.
Cheers, Ben Ryan