Decoding Newspaper Articles

Last week students looked closely at some " letters to the editor" in the Mercury focusing on the of rhetorical questions and emotive language. They also looked closely at the structures. Today (Wednesday 27th), we focused on the following article about refugees. We read it through as a class, then students read it twice more and used their highlighters to identify unfamiliar vocabulary. Students used their Writer's Notebooks to answer the broad categories of:

What
Who
Where
When and...
Why

We will be looking at their responses closely after Easter, and some modelling of succinct and informative statements will be done.  Many struggled with the "why" aspect which could be answered on a couple of levels; e.g. Why did the disaster happen, Why was the article written? Students will then be looking at the article using much more in-depth questions which require a more sophisticated level of decoding the text. They will be looking at features of the text, layout and personal response to it. I will add these to the blog after Easter.

Reading the article a few times...

Drafting up some responses

Using maps to locate Christmas Island

A grade five student hard at work

I noticed that many students believed Julia Gillard had written some of the article because she was quoted in it. We will be working hard on decoding central ideas of the article, its key features and they type of language which has been used. I sent about seven students home to read the text again and review their initial responses...as either they missed the main point, or, not enough of the task was completed. More on this soon...

Convicted: Writing a Horrible History

After Easter, all grade 5 and grade 6 students  will be expected to read this book before term two. They will be focusing closely on the  colonisation/invasion of Australia. I have quite a few copies of this book and I will be showing them how to "unpack" it using their Writer's Notebook. Their  Horrible History  book will need to include chapters on:

The transportation system and the reasons why Australia was chosen.

Life in England in 1700s,

Life on board ship

The life of a convict

The problems the convicts and settlers  faced when they came to Australia

The Aboriginal people and how the invasion affected their lives

Captain Arthur Phillip

A glossary and a contents page

Illustrations, maps and a bibliography clearly citing any sources used.

Albert Namatjira-Inspired Collages

Today we looked at some of Albert Namatjira's beautiful paintings, especially focusing on his ghost gums and depiction of trees in the Australian outback. Students then designed and made their own collage works using his paintings as inspiration. There will be another session on this next week. Other students worked on their Mondrian pieces and some large pastel drawings which you will read more about later.

Designing...

Selecting...

Tearing and cutting

Ready to glue...

Display in classroom

"Walter the Farting Dog" and some serious punctuation

Yesterday (Thursday) we looked at the text called Water the Farting Dog by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray as part of our focus on the use of speech marks and the use of dialogue in texts. There were three levels of difficulty of the passages distributed, mainly in relation to length; all were obviously excerpts from the book with most of the punctuation missing. Students had to punctuate the text they were given individually. They were given ten minutes.

Once this was completed, they worked through it with a partner, discussing the application of punctuation and making any necessary corrections. They then made a group of four, discussed the text further and then wrote the text up.

The write-up

We then went through the three texts using the Smart Board with students each having a section to punctuate on the board, or read out aloud with the new punctuation added, thus demonstrating the importance punctuation has for the reader when reading it aloud with expression and the correct diction. Students were asked to add in anything they missed at this final stage.

The correcting and modelling

The students' work was then collected up and assessed. Students were asked to use different-coloured pens or pencils at each proof-reading stage so I could determine the level of learning obtained at each given point in this lesson. Some students need to be much more through with their final correction, whilst others had been extremely vigilant and accurate.

Today, a very expressive and confident grade 6 boy read the book to the class (as my throat was very sore), and he did a fantastic job.

When the Chips Are Down - Maths Investigation

This is an upcoming maths investigation wherein students will learn about:
*Nutrition Information Panels and how to decode them
* fairly comparing chips by looking at ingredient and kilojoules of each variety per 100 grams
*the concept of a milligram and how to represent numbers using decimals
*using Excel to collect, graph data, manipulate it and analyse it
*planning  a mathematical investigation and publish a report with specific findings to answer posed questions
* sample sizes (We have 20 different types of chips and a broad selection of brands, one will be tricky include.) Using a sample of 20 would mathematically be easier to handle especially if students want to discuss their findings in terms of percentages.
*reliability in sample selection

Some of the most popular brands

Some of the new kids on the block

Students will be looking closely at the fat and sodium content, and kilojoules in a very large sample of potato chips. So how do the new organic and gluten free varieties stack up against the seasoned favourites? Is there anything such as a healthy chip? We will be giving the Chick Pea Chips the taste test, along with Kings Sea Salt & Cracked Pepper ones. All the packets will be in the room as well as some photocopies around the room. The NIP of the chip packets will also be scanned and added to this blog so students can access the information from home. As many students are in and out of the classroom on some days this blog will make a g good reference point for concepts and lessons they miss.

 Investigation Questions:

1. What brands of chips are the unhealthiest? (Look at the amounts of fat, sodium, carbohydrates and   
    sugars. Where possible use mean, mode, median and range.)

2. Which brand of chips contained the most and the least
     amount of kilojoules?  (Find the average amount)

Doritos Cheese Supreme Corn Chips

Select Supreme Cheese Corn Chips

CC"s Tasty Cheese

Smith's Salt & Vinegar

Smith's Barbecue

Macro Organic Corn Chips Spicy Barbecue

Macro Gluten Free Grilled Chicken Chips

Cheezels  Original Cheese

Cheezels Rashers Cheese & Bacon

Kettle Original Sea Salt Chips

Samboy Barbecue Crinkle Cut Potato Chips

Twisties Cheese

Doritos Original Corn Chips

Thins Original Chips

Freedom Foods Chick Pea Chips

Kings Sea Salt & Cracked Pepper Organic Potato Chips

Grain Waves Wholegrain Chips Smoky BBQ

Thomas Chapman Gluten Free Certified Organic Chips

Thins Original Fries (French)

Baked Lentil Chips Cracked Pepper

This one is a pretty tricky inclusion as it does not give the details per 100grams, only ingredients based an a 28g serving.  Two ways of working the quantities for 100 grams were modelled to students.

Students had the experience of sampling some of the new brands out such as the lentil chips, and the chick pea chips.

Sampling some of the newer brands out