Descriptive Writing

This week we have started working on writing a narrative. The goal was to use descriptive language to describe what was happening in the short video that they were shown. 

Here is Shruthi's piece of writing that she has planned and written, using some impressive descriptive language. 

Feel free to leave a comment for Shruthi, she would love some feedback! Well done Shruthi, you have certainly met the learning intention!

Words Worth Believing

The sun cascaded it’s heatwave over the windy road leading upwards. Oswald was sweating so bad, the sweat on his forehead dripped from his nose and some even got into his eyes making hot tears form. As he was nearing another bend he saw blood red fabric blowing in the humid wind, he was glad to see someone, maybe he could ask for some money, but his hopes dropped when he saw how strange the figure truly was, he looked like alive stick of licorice,drawn perfectly with a pencil and ruler, he had these peculiar sort of goggles that sat at the very beginning of his nose and it seemed as if the goggles were embed into his clay skin,high cheekbones and quite symmetrical,and of course there was that offbeat red scarf that sat on his neck and held onto the bridge of his nose like a snake around a master,  he almost looked as if he was malnutritioned. Nonetheless Oswald needed money and if this stick person was going to give it to him, so be it. He walked up to the man and stared into his goggles, although Oswald could not see his eyes, he could feel them on him, dark and cold. 

Zalik looked at this unusual child,how idiotic could it be to come up to someone who looks like himself. He just ignored and continued to hold out his thumb. ”Hello, Mister, can you see me,you are rather tall,but not as tall as  a giant I once read about. I could not help but realise how lonely you were, so I decided to keep you some company, while we wait, may I ask you some questions?”. Zalik was already annoyed with this imbecile, but still acted as if it weren’t there. “Well first of you are rude, and second of I’ll stop talking and walk away if you give me some pennies, you see my teddy bear is really hungry and…”, Oswald started to let his fake tears take over and play the trick he knew always worked, unfortunately. Zalike was not buying it, he was not amused nor was he entertained, he was in fact so agitated that he ripped off his scarf, in hope the boy would run away. “OH MY GREAT GODDESS, PICKLES ME TUESDAY, How horrific to see that in the mirror everyday!”. Zalik was taken aback, if only they had not sliced his mouth off and pulled his teeth out he would have torn this child to shreds and devoured him right there. 

Explanation Writing

This week we have been working on explanations. The class were able to choose what they wrote their explanations on, as long as it was a 'how' or 'why' topic and Shruthi chose to write about how the brain works. She has written a fantastic explanation and I have added it below. Ka Pai Shruthi, you have reached extended abstract in our Solo Rubric!

How the Brain Works.


Our brains are one of the most vital organs in our body, although it does look like pieces of clay molded together, with alot of wrinkles. The brain controls every aspect of our physical body as well as not so touchable things like our emotions and mental health. There are about 100 billion neurons in your brain linked to one another by synapse, these synapses are like a road taking information from cell to the next.


The Brain's cells are arranged in a specific pattern that interrelate, thought, emotion, behaviour, and movement.For your brain to function you need your nerve cells to determine what information is coming from the world outside your body, the nerves then transmit information to each other about what is going and the brain will then decide the action to take or how to react to the situation. The brain is able to communicate to the body, by something called the nervous system, the nervous system sends information to the brain in split seconds, alerting it about the problem. (The nervous system in real life.)



The brain, also properly known as the cerebrum, has many parts, the main ones being the Frontal lobe, Parietal lobe, Temporal lobe, Occipital lobe and the Cerebellum. The Frontal lobe controls motor movement, problem solving, spontaneity, memory, language, initiation, judgement, impulse control, and social behavior, overall the frontal lobe is considered our emotional center and is known to hold our personality. A surprising fact about the frontal lobe is that in fact you can live without it, although it honestly would not be the best idea, you would lose cognitive abilities and motor control, you would not be able to reason or form simple thoughts, you would also be physically paralysed,so making sure it’s in the best state is essential.



The Parietal lobe is situated behind the frontal lobe, it is in the upper area of the skull, and in front of the occipital; lobe although it’s known as one part is split into two functional hemispheres, one part governs sensory information regarding the location of parts on the body, for example the skin playing a large part in scenery. The other is concerned more with retaining visual information, it also processes language and mathematics. The left hemisphere is associated more with those who are right handed people, this part is known to handle more analytical thinking. The right lobe is more active with people who are left-handed, the left hemisphere is more creative and visionary. As for people who are ambidextrous use both hemispheres equally.



The Temporal lobe is surrounded by the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe and the occipital lobe as well as right underneath supporting it is the cerebellum. The temporal lobe is primarily responsible for auditory skills(hearing sensory), which makes sense, because it’s situated right next to our ear, it’s centered around helping us make sense of speech, words, vocabulary or thing around sound. This also means this part of the brain affects someone who is deaf. It is accountable for creating and preserving long term memories, this makes sense for the hippocampus is located in the center of the temporal lobe that is why long term memory is one of the functions that fall under this specific part of the brain.


The Occipital lobe is the smallest of the four. Similar to the Parietal lobe it functions around visuals although it is more in depth. It visualizes depth and distance, colour determination, recognition of objects and faces, and the formation of a memory. If the occipital lobe were to be damaged there is a high possibility of loss of sight, and depending on how bad or where the injury has taken place, it could result in visual hallucinations and illusions.


The Cerebellum is that part that looks like it did not know where to fit in so it just stuck to the bottom of the four lobes, it is also latin for little brain which just concludes how odd it honestly is. It has a common misconception that it has a link toward motor movement, but this is incorrect, it is still linked to movement, but in a different way. The cerebellum contributes to coordination, precision, and accurate timing, it’s commonly associated with reflexes, for example if a ball were to be thrown towards you your cerebellum would take control and indicate to the frontal lobe to move in order to avoid an injury.


To summarize how, the brain works, it would take quite some time, it is very intricate and detailed organ, what makes it so odd is the fact we are using our brains to basically learn about our brains which seems like an endless cycle, but all in all the brain is a quite complex and interesting the way it works has baffled many, including myself. I personally like that every part of the brain works hand in hand with each part of itself as well as the body.It’s definitely something that will forever be questioned which in a way is fascinating.

Jasmine's Writing

Check out Jasmine's fantastic piece of descriptive writing. The use of similes is awesome! Well done Jasmine!

Descriptive Writing

This week T2 has been focusing on using descriptive language in their writing to either describe their special place or a character. We have been working on showing the reader, not telling them and here are some examples of the fabulous writing that T2 has written this week from home!


By Shruthi



By Abbie



By Bailee


By Hannah

Hide and Seek Writing - By Shruthi

This week we started our online learning because we are still in Level 4 lock down. Our writing task for this week was to use descriptive language to describe a game of hide and seek. Shruthi has used some great descriptive language and I wanted to share it with you. Well done Shruthi!

Exposition Writing

Over the last few weeks of term 2 and this week we have been working on exposition writing. This is a chance for us to argue our point of view and use facts and opinions to back up our topic sentences. We were given the opportunity to work collaboratively with others in our class to create an argument on whether we think cellphones should be banned at school or not. Check out Iris, Mia, Reagan and Arielle's piece of writing. The girls have used some great topic sentences as well as facts to back up their opinions to create a very successful piece of argument writing. Ka Pai girls!

Get Writing Schoolkit

This week we sent our Get Writing pack to a school in Hamilton. Included in this pack was 32 postcards that we had decorated and wrote poems on the back of them and a big sheet where we had to add words and phrases that we enjoyed in our class, plus a little bit of information about where our school is and the region we live in.
Here is a photo of the postcards we received from the school in Hamilton.
It was pretty cool to read the poems that they had created as they were so different to the ones we wrote!

School Kit - Get Writing

Ruby, Corianna, Iris and Mia have put together our School Kit - Get Writing cards. We are getting ready to send them to Northpark School in Auckland. We had to write Metaphors about ourselves to describe who we are to people that we have never met. Some of us found it quite easy, while some of us found it a bit challenging. We are really looking forward to receiving our writing from our buddy school. It would be really cool if they could see our blog too!

Space Reports

We started this term out of this world! We have been looking at Space and the planets in our Solar System. We had a number of activities that we needed to complete which were on the Space Site https://sites.google.com/a/greymain.school.nz/space/?pli=1
One of our tasks was to write a report on a planet in our Solar System. Click on our names to read our reports.

Kindness

Check out this act of Kindness! Paris saw that Royden was writing on his blog and was having trouble reading what he had to write next, so without even thinking she went over and helped him write his report on his blog.  Thank you Paris for always thinking of others and showing kindness. You truly are a great Grey Main role model!

Writing

WALT: Write Similes.
As part of our ANZAC topic we are learning to write descriptively. One of the criteria for our recount in the day in the life of a soldier is to use at least two similes in our piece of writing.
Yesterday we got into pairs and practised writing really descriptive similes that we might be able to use in our piece of writing. We did it on a Padlet so we could share our ideas with the class and then maybe we could 'borrow' someone elses because we all know that writers are thieves!

Get Writing NZ

This week we have been working on our Get Writing NZ project. We had to complete a poem about ourselves on a postcard and then decorate each postcard in any way we like. We are sharing our writing with a class at Henderson Intermediate in Auckland. Another part of the package was to complete a sheet all about our class. Did you know that in Totara 2 19 people can roll their tongues (Miss Hines is one that can't!) and only 1 student can lick their own elbow?! Also the longest word we know is Raxacoricofallapatorius (thank you Mackenzie Hallberg!) We are really looking forward to receiving our package to learn about another school in New Zealand! #getnzwriting

Writing - What Makes a Great Narrative?

For the past term we have been working on writing explanations and we are a little bit sick of them, so today Miss Hines decided we would do something completely different and use our imaginations to write a narrative. Before she gave us our prompt, we had to show her that we knew what a good narrative needs. In pairs we used Padlet to brainstorm everything that we thought should be in a narrative. We will use this for our Success Criteria.

Paragraph Success Criteria

Today for writing T1 looked at what makes a good paragraph. In pairs we discussed what a good paragraph needs and we listed them on our Padlet. From these lists we are creating a DLO for others to follow when they are writing paragraphs. These will be uploaded onto our blogs in the next couple of days so don't forget to check them out!

Created with Padlet

Homework Poetry By Mya

Mya has also been practising using Screencastify for her home learning. She has done a fantastic job. Listen carefully and see if you can hear the two things that made me laugh! Well done Mya!

Poetry

This week we looked at the poem Didgeridoo by Roger McGough. It is a nonsense poem that has some fantastic alliteration. We went into groups of 3-4 and analysed the poem, picking out the features that we thought were the most important. We then brainstormed our own animals and tried to use alliteration and wrote our own stanza's in our groups. Here is the finished product:

What does a Didgeridoo?

By room 17

A Rat

cannot rap while running

Wolves

wolf down hot rabbit stew

Polar bears

pee into ice pools

but what does a didgeridoo?

Fox’s

Fly fiercely for food

Lion’s

Leap over lazy loos

Jaguar’s

Jump over with joy

What does a Didgeridoo?

Greyhounds

will always wear grey gowns

Emus

like to say boo

Bats

Are as batty as batman

But what does a didgeridoo?

Llamas

Like lying on concrete

Dinosaurs

Leave big piles of poo

Monkeys

Make magical mud piles

But what does a didgeridoo?

Unicorns

Have horns that pop corn

Chicken’s

Lay Eggs in a shoe

Leopard’s

Jump over leo’s lollies

What does a didgeridoo?

Griffin’s

Cannot swim because they have no fins

Dogs

Like to jump through fog and poo

The Zebra

Beats the zebu

But what does a didgeridoo?

What does a didgery,

What does a didgery,

What does a didgerydoo?

Pizza Writing

Today we had Room 8 come and share their instructions they had written on how to make pizzas. We followed them and got to make the pizza and cook it. They were delicious! We also gave Room 8 some feedback and next steps for their writing. Thanks Room 8!

Report Writing

WALT write a report

Shaun's Blog: A Winters Morning (memory poem)

Check out Shaun's Memory Poem. I can definitely imagine this! What do you think?



Shaun's Blog: A Winters Morning (memory poem)

Writing - Guinness "Cloud" - Made Of More

WALT: Use personification in our writing



This week we are learning all about personification. We watched a YouTube clip which used a cloud and from the images and the words, made the cloud almost like a person. We used this clip and the poem to become inspired and write our own "Made of More" poems. Check them out on our blogs!