Yesterday, our school participated in ALIA’s National Simultaneous Storytime. Each Stage gathered in groups around the school at 11am (simultaneously with schools all over Australia) to share the picture book, The Brothers Quibble by Aaron Blabey!
The Brothers Quibble
The Brothers Quibble [Auslan version]
Aaron Blabey – Picture book maker [Story Box Library]
Our previous links are HERE.
Stage 3 students investigate global connections – blog
The above blog, the template of which was created in 2013, will be used to present the students’ research into Australia’s global connections – by being globally connected! The original Wordles are from the three classes who created the blog.
Presenting ‘My father the great pirate: teachers’ notes‘, by yours truly, published by Australian Standing Orders & Wilkins Farago, 2014. In support of the picture book by Davide Cali & Maurizio Quarello, and including this digital story on PhotoPeach as an example of a practical learning activity I brainstormed with Stage 2 and Stage 3 students a few months ago:
Nudge nudge, wink wink…
Stop the presses!
Traditionally, a newspaper’s political cartoons are created close to deadline.
Congratulations to our Stage 3 students, who rose to a unique occasion. Following our intensive investigation into Democracy and Federation in Australia (HSIE unit), I challenged them to break into pairs and, armed with just a black felt pen, a piece of paper and heads full of concepts and ideas, to create a political cartoon in just 20 minutes. No pencils or erasers permitted.
Our complete Flickr slideshow is HERE.
The Teachers’ notes I wrote for Wilkins Farago Publishing are now online. I hope lots of school libraries buy their own copy of the picture book, One red shoe, and get good use out of it!
The notes can be downloaded as a PDF here.
When I was testing the book out with our Stage 3 students, even the Stage 2 students were intrigued, although they only really discussed the red symbolism throughout, not the stronger themes about war/unrest in the Gaza Strip, but they came up with this digital slideshow:
Stage 3 students have been learning about democracy in HSIE. Now we move on to the Australian arena. A rather irreverent look at the history of Australia, by Daven Bettridge, this animated video clip demonstrates several elements of persuasive texts.
A brief history of Australia
We then investigated the Youtube search engine and found that by adding the descriptor “Parkes” (as in Sir Henry Parkes, Father of Federation), with “Australia” and “Federation”, we could bring up a useful selection of short student assignments from other schools, and promotional clips aimed at tourists. We discussed potential problems and strategies for using such information, and ways to enhance our own learning. Two of the most useful clips, for an introduction to Federation in Australia, were:
The Federation Show with Henry Parkes and Smiley Smiles
Grave of Sir Henry Parkes, Faulconbridge, NSW
K-6PR created these murals yesterday on the IWB. Their current theme is “Sea creatures”.
Stage 2 group:
Once upon a time, there was a mermaid. She was looking in her mirror to put on lipstick. A shark came to eat the fish swimming around her. The mermaid could see the shark behind her in the mirror.
The man caught a fish on his fishing rod. The man saw a dolphin jumping high. It was going up and down.
The crab is finding a pearl in the clam.
The whale is coming up out of the ocean to spray water out of his blowhole.
The seahorses were watching the shark chase the fish. They were hiding in the seaweed because they didn’t want to get eaten too.
Stage 1 group:
The whale can move through the water by swishing his tail. It is looking for krill to eat.
The shark is swimming and wants to eat the turtle. The turtle is on the beach so he can be safe. He wants to go into the water to find food but he is scared of the shark.
The dolphin wants to make friends with the clownfish.
The crabs are digging lots of holes in the sand because it is time for bed.
The mermaid is cuddling a fish because he is her friend. The sunblock on the beach belongs to the mermaid. She uses it when she comes out of the water and her magical tail has turned into legs.
Early Stage 1 group:
We can see a whale.
We can see a mermaid putting on her lipstick. She has a fish tail instead of legs.
We can see a fish with bubbles coming out of his mouth. There are five orange fish blowing bubbles.
We can see a dolphin swimming.
We can see some crabs swimming in the water. They are playing “Hide and Seek”.
We can see two fish swimming together.
The eel is chasing the fish because he wants to eat them.
The fat dolphin wants to eat the fish.
The blue fish is in a bowl.
Stage 3 group:
Once upon a time there was a shiver of sharks. The sharks wanted to attack a seal because they were hungry. This is why the seal looks so worried.
Meanwhile, a dolphin was swimming towards a catfish. He was going to teach the catfish how to jump. This was so the catfish could get away from the sharks.
The crab was planning to use his nippers to catch the seahorse’s tail. The seahorse wants to make friends with the catfish.
The sea turtle is swimming towards the shallow water where the sun is shining through. She is ready to lay her eggs in the sand.
COLLECTIVE NOUNS:
When we were writing the above story we needed a collective noun for a group of sharks. We read that it could be a school, a shoal, a pack or a shiver of sharks. Here are some more interesting collective nouns:
A cast of crabs.
A pod of dolphins.
A school or shoal of fish.
A gam of whales.
A bale of turtles.
A bob of seals.
Australian democracy part 1
In search of democracy: introduction
In search of democracy: part 1 – birth of democracy
In search of democracy: part 2 – Ancient Greece
This digital story is especially for author Meredith Costain, with many thanks for sending Penrith Public School the signed copy of her wonderful new picture book, My first day at school (Windy Hollow Books, 2013). The book’s illustrations are by Michelle Macintosh.
Stage 3 students have recently been working as “buddies” for Kindergarten Orientation, and they enjoyed having Meredith’s book read to them in a library session, and then reminiscing, brainstorming, storyboarding, photographing, and suggesting possible text for a joint construction to create a PhotoPeach presentation. We anticipate our incoming Kindergarten students, future buddies and staff and students at other schools to get some useful tips from it.
Special thanks to Ms Stockton, who allowed Robbie Rules – our oldest “student” at Penrith PS, who’s never graduated from Stage 1 – to visit the library for the last few weeks of Term 4, 2013.
Robbie Rules: My first day at school