We have written plenty of recipes with Mr Swallow before (Egyptian Saboob bread, Spaghetti Carbonara and our amazing Regional pizzas!) So, Mr Swallow decided that we were ready for a recipe writing challenge! He gave us this Yorkshire Pudding Recipe:
Get 2 eggs, 80g of flour & 100ml of milk
Mix it together
Cook it in the oven for around 20 mins
That was it! It was a rubbish recipe! He didn’t use time order words, bossy words, adjectives or adverbs! Terrible. He gave us just 1 lesson where he reminded us what features a recipe should have and then told us we would be writing our own with no help.
We know what you’re thinking, that is tricky but not that hard. Well, that’s not all! Meet Compo and Nora Batty…
They are the stars of an old Yorkshire TV show and Mr Swallow let us see them in action. He then challenged us to become either Compo or Nora and, write the recipe AS IF WE ARE THEM!
The Nora Battys would have to make sure that the house was kept clean whilst they worked and also to keep an eye out for Compo sneaking in to pinch ingredients or even a kiss!!!!
The Compos had to be a little creative in the ingredients they used and were, obviously, not too bothered about hygiene standards!
Take a look at some of our amazing work already on display in the classroom linked to our current topic of ‘What’s the most important thing about Christmas?’
The classroom looks super festive and we have even got our own Naughty Nigel elf to look after for Santa!
We have been wondering why he is in our class and thinking of how he got here?
This week, we have been learning about Dr Seuss – we have started writing a biography about his life.
We enjoyed reading our drafted versions to each other, it was helpful as we spotted mistakes in our sentence structure so we were able to green pen our edits in!
We are going to bring the forest to life for our readers. What matters, in descriptive writing, is capturing the details and sensations of being in a place. Presenting your reader with sights, sounds, smells and feelings that they have felt themselves so they can place themselves in the situation you are describing.
What we do not want to do is TELL the reader how they are feeling, instead GIVE THEM CLUES and make them interpret them, themselves!
For example:
You are in a dark, dank forest with huge, mossy trees. It is raining hard and only the fact that you are hidden amongst the trees is stopping you getting soaked. (It’s not bad but you don’t feel as if you are there!
Instead, try:
As your eyes begin to adjust to the gloom, you begin to pick out some of the sounds and smells around you. The deep, occasional creak of think, heavy branches. The quick, sharp rattle of twigs clattering lazily together and the soft, rising & falling rustle of a million leaves in the trees above you. The earth smells rich and mossy in contrast to the fresh scent of pine in the air. You turn up your lincoln green collar and duck further back into the hollow in which you are hidden just in time to avoid the pitter-patter of raindrops falling all around you.(These are all smells and sounds your reader will have experienced before so they will easily be able to picture the scene)
Your challenge:
Go and visit a wooded area. You are soaking up the sounds and smells around you. What can you hear, see and feel? You could take photos and write notes around them. You could record video or record your ideas on book creator. What can you compare the sounds to? Get your family to join in, the more ideas, the better. Do adults have clever vocabulary you can learn? Do they know little sayings that help paint a picture? What we want is for you to have a rich selection of vocabulary and ideas from which you can select from in your writing task tomorrow.
The task this week will take you all week if you are going to do it properly. We are going to produce a piece of creative writing GOOD ENOUGH TO GO IN YOUR WRITING ASSESSMENT FOLDERS!!!!! That’s right, best writing at home!
Now to get to this best piece, we are going to learn different stages (like we would do in class). Then it will be your job on Friday to put the pieces back together independently in one piece of writing.
I shall add the next step each day…
Monday: Types of ending.
The Lady of Shalott ends with the death of the eponymous Lady. This type of ending is known as a tragedy. (A sad ending, where people die or do not get what they deserve.) It is also implicit (this means it doesn’t explain why or how the story really ends, you have to guess certain bits, like ‘Why was she cursed?’) This is a very unusual type of ending for a school text but very important to learn about, as sad and scary texts are very good at engaging us emotionally and involving us in the story. Here are some other types of ending, can you apply them to our poem? How would the story have turned out with these different types of ending? (I’ve done one for you, can you give your own twist and explain the rest? you can work with a grown-up)
Twist: It turns out that Lancelot was the one who imprisoned her in the tower and reveals this when he sees her float down to Camelot!!!
Happy ending:
Explicit: (You reveal all the details and explain everything)
The long view (What are the characters’ lives like in years to come?)
The cliff-hanger! (Something happens at the end that leaves us in suspense, the story ends with us dying to know what will happen next!)
So, come up with your own version of each and apply it to the Lady of Shalott. Then, research (ask friends and family) and create a list of stories, books, films or poems which fit into each category. these will help us structure the ending you choose to go for on Friday.
Here is a link to a video of the story in case you’ve forgotten the poem!
Plus a (very simple) storyboard
Tuesday
Today’s learning is all about figurative language. As we know from reading the poem, Tennyson was amazing at using detailed description to paint a picture. For example, instead of saying, ‘winter is coming, he tells us, “willows whiten, aspens quiver.” He is getting us to understand what he is tellings us by giving us clues and painting a picture. We can do the same trick…if I tell you:
“As I stepped out of the door, I shielded my eyes with my hand and squinted, trying to make out the shapes outside. By the end of the street, I had already begun to perspire a little and my new flip flops were blistering my feet.
What is the weather like?
What time of year could it be?
How can you tell?
Can you use the same trick to paint a picture of:
a rainy day
a scary situation
riding a roller coaster
opening an amazing birthday present
Remember, give clues, don’t tell us what you are doing.
Wednesday & Thursday
now I want us to work on a grammar skill that we have already visited in class. We are going to use a subordinate clause to add extra information to a sentence. We are going to separate the main clause from the subordinate clause with a comma. like this…
Main clause , Subordinate clause
Mr Swallow forgot to post our challenge, he is getting very old and forgetful.
Subordinate clause , Main clause
Due to the nice weather, I went for a game of football in the garden.
So the main clause is the important information and the subordinate clause adds extra detail. We separate the two with a comma. The subordinate clause can come at the beginning, the end or even in the middle:
Main clause , Subordinate clause , Main clause
I got in and immediately, because of the lockdown, washed my hands thoroughly.
Try out this skill with some sentences of your own. Vary the position of the subordinate clause and remember to separate it from the main clause using a comma.
Writing time! I would like you to write an alternative ending to the Lady of Shallot showcasing some of the skills you have worked on this week. Think about:
the type of ending you would like to go for, use some other examples of texts with that type of ending as a model
descriptive, figurative language, make us work hard, give clues not details
can you use subordinate clause to add extra detail and vary where you use them
also, think of other skills we have practised through the year, such as paragraphing or direct speech and the punctuation that goes with them.
most importantly, post up your writing so I can read it 😁
Mrs O’Neill has seen that we are working on homophones and set you an online challenge…it goes pretty fast so you should probably pause it when each pair of pictures pops up to give you time to guess the homophone and write both versions down in your home school book. Then you can press play again to see if you got it right!
We have been learning about stereotypes. That is the phrase we use to describe it when someone is assumed to have certain characteristics just because of things like where they are born, the colour of their hair or the sport they play.
We looked for examples in books; ‘The Troll and Room on the Broom, by Julia Donaldson. We found that the main characters in both books fitted into what we expect trolls and witches to look and act like but that both characters actually acted very differently to how they looked. We asked clever questions like, “Is a troll still a troll if he doesn’t live under a bridge?” “Are witches still magic without their wands?” “Is it fair to expect all trolls to be mean?”
We found out that there are certain stereotypes for people who come from Yorkshire!!!! Just look at the first set of images that appear if you google, “Yorkshireman”
As India pointed out, even the saying is inaccurate as she is a proud “Yorkshirewoman”! We looked around our class and we didn’t see one child in a flat cap or wearing a tweed jacket. So we investigated further and found all sorts of sayings or misconceptions related to being from barnsley and Yorkshire:
Yorkshire folk are “strong int’ arm and thick int’ ‘ed! (We certainly disagreed with that one!!!)
Yorkshire people have pet whippets and ferrets or fly kestrels! (We have plenty of pugs in the class it seems)
We sit around eating Yorkshire puddings and drinking Yorkshire tea (we generally agreed we like these things but our tastes are much more varied!)
We had a lot of fun learning broad Barnsley phrases and sayings because it is important to be proud of our culture and heritage…Miss Buckley jumped a mile when we asked her to “put t’ wood int’ ‘oil” as she entered the classroom! However, we realized that all of these stereotypes didn’t accurately describe the lovely Yorkshire pupils in our class. So, we did what everyone should do when faced with out-dated, stereotypical views…we made fun of it!
We decided to see what it would look like if we did all wear flat caps, tweed and pipes. Or curlers in our hair like Nora Batty! What would we look like walking a whippet and flying a kestrel while supping a pot of Yorkshire tea??? Tune in next week to see the results…
we have been learning skills that help us present our arguments clearly and debate others’ point of view. We practiced in class, using our skills to debate important issues, such as: Should we have to wear a school uniform? Should we have homework? Should we begin the school day earlier or later?
The children split into 2 teams to decide on what their arguments should be and then debate the issue with the other team.
The skills were:
Be polite, show the other person you have listened to their point of view (using phrases such as, “That’s a good point, but…” “I see what you mean, however…” “I agree with you, but have you considered…”)
Try to anticipate what the other team will say and beat them to it (“I imagine you thing we need homework to do well but…” “Some people say we shouldn’t have to wear a uniform but…”)
Hopefully, these phrases may sound familiar to our parents because our homework is to go home and win an argument (or friendly debate) using our new-found powers of persuasion!
So if your dinner conversation tonight begins with, “Mum, I really appreciate you want me to eat healthily and that’s because you care, but…” then don’t worry…your child is just doing their homework!
We worked with Year 3 on the iPads. We looked at pictures on wintery landscapes and added amazing vocabulary to the pictures by tapping the screen and recording our voices as sound buttons.
We first thought about what we could see, then what we could hear and finally, what we could feel. Working together and collaborating was a great way of sharing good ideas and vocabulary. We use a separate picture for each of these senses.
When it came time to write, we could keep the iPad on our table and press the buttons on the screen to remind us of those lovely ideas and phrases we had used. As we had recorded a different sense on each screen, this helped us paragraph our work, making sure that each paragraph focussed upon one of those senses.
This really supported our youngest writers as they had a simple guide to follow. Similarly, it challenged our more able writers as they were able to play with the order of the paragraphs and the effect this had on their writing.
As Year 4 walked into the classroom this morning, they were presented with a map of Europe with the outline of Australia overlayed on top. This was to try and show the sheer size of the country we are learning about. Working collaboratively in teams, they had to add place names from both Europe and Australia, where the maps overlapped.
We then turned these locations (the “Facts”) into comparative sentences (the “Fancy”). This is a very tricky task and the children enjoyed being able to do something so grown up!
We turned “Fact” into “Fancy” right there and then in the lesson, starting from just a blank map!
We have had to learn lots of new skills and knowledge to be able to do this:
We had to research and read about who was sent to Australia and what the journey was like
We had to look at a good example of a diary so we knew what features to include in our own version. Including; using personal pronouns to write in the first person, talking to the diary like a real person, sharing our feelings and emotions, using non-standard English and time fronted adverbials to move the action along- clever stuff!
We created authentic-looking artwork to illustrate our diary, like the pictures we saw when reading about the First Fleet
We had to use some very clever computer skills to be able to transfer photos of our work from the iPads to our school server by sharing an IP address!!!
We had to use formatting skills to make an authentic looking writing frame for our diary on Word
Finally, we had to put all of these elements together to write our independent diaries!
We are creating ink drawings of ourselves in character onboard a prison ship, in the First Fleet on its way to Australia.
This morning we had to add post-it notes to show how our characters would be feeling. Were they missing home? How was life onboard ship making them feel? What were they scared of? What would Australia be like when they got there? They look great…
We now need to use those post-it note feelings in our diary writing!
