Two Wolves

The focus of our read alouds this term, has been a book called "Two Wolves" by Tristan Bancks. It was a winner of the recent KOALA book awards, which was attended by some of our stage 3 students. They attended this with our wonderful librarian, Mrs Turner. They were very excited when they met Mr Bancks and when the book won.

Two Wolves (1 slide) from bill woodruff

At the heart of the book, is the story of Two Wolves, an old Indian story. It's main focus is on Ben and his sister Olive. The story is told from Ben's perspective as he tries to make sense of the confusing and frightening events of fleeing the police with his parents and then being stranded in the bush. It is a suspenseful read and each chapter leaves the reader guessing. The book has given rise to some excellent learning opportunities about reading and writing. 

Personification

Olive often describes her father as being Maugrim, a reference to the Wolf chief of police in "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" by C.S. Lewis. We watched a clip that showed the character of Maugrim. The students wrote down the characteristics of Maugrim, which we then compared to the children's father. We discussed how the wolf portrayed the human qualities of anger, hate and malice, which is why Olive compares her father to a wolf. 

We then discussed what personification was with the help of an online dictionary. We discussed how non human things can portray human qualities. After looking at some other examples of personification, our students created some of their own examples in pairs. 

Making Pictures in our head

Visualising what we read is a good strategy for reading and is one of the Daily 5 reading strategies that we were working on. We referred to the character Ben. He is always visualising movies in his head throughout the story.
 We discussed what visualisation was and how the author used words effectively so that the reader can visualise what is happening in the story.

A quick assessment to see that students could use this strategy was to draw a picture of what the students remembered happened in the previous chapter. We read half of the chapter and then the students drew what they remembered most. We discussed how it helped to remember small details & how using prior knowledge of the bush and the information in the text helped to form a picture of what was happening. We then predicted what would happen next in the chapter. 

What have enjoyed the most about Two Wolves? What have you you learned about reading and writing this term? How do you think the story will end? 

Kung Fu Punctuation

Kung fu punctuation from Vissy Profson

One of the writing strategies that we have been working on this week is to be more aware and improve on using punctuation. Kung Fu punctuation is the martial arts of grammar and punctuation. It involves learning the hand actions and sounds to indicate each punctuation mark. 

At the end of each learning session we have been conducting tournaments. A referee nominates three punctuation marks that the combatants have to complete both accurately and in order. Once a tournament is complete, the students then take turns to be referee.

It has been a lot of fun but also encouraging to see students use Kung Fu in their reading, They use the moves and sounds as they are reading their books, The strategy that this uses is "Using Punctuation to enhance prosody and phrasing". Using Kung Fu Punctuation has helped students to become more aware of punctuation when they are reading.

What have you learned about Punctuation? Do you enjoy Kung Fu punctuation? Can you think of some other moves to add to Kung Fu Punctuation?