Written Language
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Term 3
We have continued this term in our use of Graphic organizers. We have been assessing whether these are an effective tool for us to use, either in our planning, or in the presenting of our work.
At the conclusion of Art week there was a general interest in the wonderful Art displayed. Questions such as, ‘I wonder how they made that? Could we please make, draw paint etc the same as Room?’ arose. We soon realised we would have to get the procedure of how such and such was done from another class teacher. Then the question arose. What if another class wanted to make Tesserae tiles? To create a tile that represents the country of Italy (Our world cup nation.) Would we be confident in orally telling them the step-by-step details, or could we miss out an important step? As we had not taken step-by-step photos of the process, (as we had earlier in the year for ‘How to put up a tent’) we decided to write down the instructions. As the Children had found it easier to plan and write using the bubble map, they were keen to use another organiser to help them plan their writing. After discussion, and looking at the various options on line the children decided to chose a flow map as a suitable organiser to use for itemising individual steps in the procedure.
As the first three steps in this procedure, required detailed, exact information as to how to make the template, as a class we wrote these together on line and the teacher added the little illustrations at a later date.
The children then individually, completed their procedure. As it was on line, individual, buddy and teacher reflection made it easy to edit or re craft, the listed steps to make Above is an example of the flow chart being used for the Tesserae Tile procedure.
To complete the current written project, on Italy our world cup nation, the children are working in pairs, using a Brace Map to plan and present their information. The children have worked well together to research and place their information under their Brace map headings. (Click to enlarge them)
During Term 2 we are concentrating on a class goal:
To work on the amount of writing I do
in a given time, and add more detail and descriptive writing to support
the main ideas in the story.
To do this we have chosen a topic and the teacher has given us the main idea such as “ On Thursday we went to the Opera House to listen to the Beijing Musicians.”
To increase our writing and give more detail we have thought about “What it might Sound like, Look like, and Feel like.”
Already the children are writing more if you care to compare the
‘Aquatic centre’ written early February and ‘Beijing Musical’ written
early March.
You can read what we have written under three topics by clicking the links below. Click each page to read the next one.
We used a graphic organiser- A ‘Bubble Map,’ as a tool to assist us in
the planning of our story. Each bubble was to contain a main idea that
we wanted to write about. Then a second bubble map was used to itemise
the key material we wanted to put under a ‘main idea’ heading. This
enabled us to focus on the main points we wanted to put into each
paragraph. We choose four out of our six main ideas to write a
paragraph about. These were put together to create our story.
Bees
By Brandon R.
Inside the hive I saw the Queen bee. She was the longest bee. She wants to lay eggs. Before she does that, she gets to mate with Drones. The Queen lays up to 1,500-2,000 eggs a day and only three of them are newborn Queen Bees. The first one born, is the new Queen Bee. She stings the other two to death, because there can be only one Queen Bee in a hive . When the three Queen Bees are born, they get fed royal jelly. The Queen stays in the bottom of the hive to lay eggs.
There are three different types of bees in a hive, and two of them are called Workers and Drones. Drones come out of the middle - sized cell and Workers come out of the littlest cell. Workers do most of the work, and Drones sit around and eat all the honey. In the Winter, the Worker Bees tear off the Drones wings because they don’t work. Drones are boys and Workers are girls. Drones are the second biggest Bee in the hive, and Workers are the smallest.
Honey is the best food because you can eat it in so many ways. Like on bread, on your cereal, in cakes, on pikelets and just plain old honey. In NZ there are about 8 different types of honey, including comb honey, which is honey in a comb from the hive. In Denmark at Christmas they make honey into cakes, like Gingerbread men houses. Honey is quite often in a jar and if it’s like that, you can eat it with a spoon. Honey is very yummy and it is good for you.
In the world there are two different types of hives. The Wild hive nest, and the Beekeepers hive. Bees make the hive out of wax. It takes a kilogram of wax to make a small hive. In a Honey Bee hive there are over 50,000 bees in the hive. In the hive, there are millions of wax cells in a hive. A wild nest often hangs from trees.
In the Hive
By Cameron M.
Buzz, buzz, bzzzzz. Hi I am a Drone bee from the hive and our Queen is getting very old. I can tell her by her scent, as it is very weak. So my sisters start to build the giant cells. The old Queen is really busy. She lays heaps of eggs. When the Queen bee lays the eggs for the cells, the Workers feed them royal jelly for the new Queens. The first Queen crawls around and stings the other Queens to death. Then my new mum lets off a scent. OH yeah, let me tell you facts about some thing else.
If there were no bees there would be no pollination and that means no plants, and less meat too, because cows and sheep eat grass too. But look on the bright side. At least my sisters won’t sting you. But there are Wasps and they sting too, and you know that playground under my hive, it wouldn’t have any bark because bark comes from trees. If there were no bees my sisters wouldn’t be able to make you nice sweet honey. If there were no bees every thing would be made out of concrete because there would be no grass. Oh well, that’s all I know. So lets talk about something else.
My sisters have a sting and I am jealous. My sisters are called Worker bees, because they work all the time in and out of the hive. When the hive gets too hot they keep it at the right temperature to keep the eggs, the pupa, and the larvae alive. If you want I can tell you how they work outside of the hive. Well, first they fly to a flower and suck up nectar and also gather pollen, and then they fly to another flower, but drop some of the pollen which pollinates the flowers. The cycle goes round and round. Then she comes back to the hive and spits the nectar into another workers mouth again to make honey. They then store it.
Now, let me talk about myself. I am called a Drone, but not because
I “drone” all the time when I talk. Drones don’t have a sting and you know those stupid workers rip our wings off, because they think we steal their honey. We always just sit around and watch our sisters work all day, and have I told you about the size of the drone Bee? I am the second biggest in the hive. When we mate with the Queen we die. Oh No, that reminds me, I’d better get to the Queen. Bye.
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