The Orphan Boy by Tololwa M. Mollel & Paul Morin

I presented the students with this cover and they all made a prediction about the text.

This is a beautiful retelling of an East African Massai legend of the night sky and the origin of the planet Venus. It is about an old man who meets a young orphan boy who radically changes his life. The boy, Kileken magically gets the usual chores done in a small time frame. The old man becomes curious about how he achieves this and his curiosity grows with him desperate to learn the secret behind the boy's success. We focused closely on the theme of trust and discussed trust and confidentiality that we have with close friends and what happens when these are impaired.

On the second reading students took notes using keywords. These will assist them when they do a retelling of the story on Monday the 14th. Students will also be expected to show use of figurative language including, personification, simile and alliteration. Their retellings will be assessed on the structure of their stories and their ability to incorporate figurative language into their creations. and their pieces will be assessed on both. 

Postcard; decoding the past...andour first Oral Literacies Activity

Students were given postcards from my grandmother's collection from different places around the world and asked to decode them and rewrite them using today's handwriting style.   I shared the ones written in German and French; now to decode them...that would have been a real challenge! They worked in groups of three and each group were supplied with a magnifying glass and a dictionary. They were allowed to use the world wideweb to aid them in their research of the postcard illustration or photograph, stamp and anything else they may have been intrigued by.  Many did not realise that all of these postcards were written using an ink pen and ink. Some of the postcards had some strange Aussie colloquial expressions. We talked about the ways that communication have changed over the last century. Indeed, most of these postcards are over one hundred years old! I began the unit by reading the book Never Mail and Elephant.  They then shared their findings with the class.

Super sleuth historians

Up close and personal with the past

Magnifying glasses  came in handy

Sometimes the writers only used phrases and no punctuation!

There was a large collection of postcards

This one was complicated

Sample

Mrs Wells, the principal, joins in the fun

Oral Literacy - Part of the Big Six

Each partnership received an unsighted button; most were of some kind of bear from my button collection. One person in the pair was the describer and the other the drawer. We brainstormed ideas which would help the describer,  Students then shared how they fared. They the swapped and were given new buttons. As a class we shared the outcomes and reflected on the use of using precise language in giving clear directions.

Sharing outcomes as a whole class

Sharing outcomes

Sharing outcomes