5/6C’s Class Blog 2008

In class we are reading the American novel “Riding Freedom”, by Pam Muñoz Ryan. The novel’s genre is historical fiction, which means that while many of the characters and events in the book are non-fiction, or true, other characters and details have been invented by the author to help make the book more interesting, make sense better, or to fill in gaps in history. The book relates to our current study of Government and Elections as the central character, Charley, is believed to be the first woman to vote in a U.S. Presidential election – although officials didn’t know that at the time!

When we have finished we will write a review to post on our Books page.

The Wordle below was made using a discussion guide for “Riding Freedom” on the U.S. Scholastic website.

In the first week of September our school took part in some activities to mark National Literacy and Numeracy week in Australian schools. The festivities began on Monday with a games afternoon outside. We played all kinds of games that honed our English and maths skills – Scrabble and Boggle were favorites of the senior students.

Then we took part in the coin toss activity. We threw 20 cent pieces at a target from distances of 1m, 1.5m and 2m, and tallied the results. It was much harder than we thought it would be to get the coin to stop on the target – many of them hit the bullseye but then rolled away!

The results of the nation-wide activity are now in – you can see them all here. It seems many schools had similar results to ours!

Image: prufrock27 on Flickr under Creative Commons Attribution Licence

Miss Wyatt found this site, Wordcount, on someone else’s blog. I found it on her class blog. Now you’ve found it on our blog – the wonders of networking!

This site is fascinating; did you know that chocolate is the 4,204th most used word in English? Or that James is number 1000? The is the most commonly used word, and conquistador comes last in the database, at 86,800th!

Check out the wordle for a few others I picked out, then go and search yourself!

In the 1920s, famous author Ernest Hemingway bet ten dollars that he could write a complete story in just six words. He wrote: “For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.”  He won the bet, for in those six words is a complete tale.

Writing a memoir in six words has become a popular challenge with many websites showing thousands of peoples’ stories. Apparently it all began with Larry Smith of Smith’s Magazine who read about Ernest Hemmingway’s bet and challenged his readers to send in their own six word stories. Some thirty thousand stories later, and a book (”Not Quite What I Was Planning”), the six word story is alive and well.

One third grade class in South Jersey made a book of their responses, called “Not Quite What We Were Planning”. Quotes from that book include:

“Eight years old, combed hair twice.” -Noah
“Hate some boys but like others.” – Sarah
“Wish everyday was a bed day.” – Emily
“Nine years stacked within my soul.” – Laura
“A kids life is my life.” – Kion

There are many websites with more six word stories.Some are funny, some are sad and some are just plain weird, but they’re all interesting (although some are a bit rude – stick to the links here kids!) Al Upton’s grade did a great job of this task – follow the link to read some of their ideas. Then you can head to the Voices Online wiki, choose a picture and construct a thoughtful 6 word response.

Image: akahodag from Flickr.

We’ve finally finished a couple more book reviews and posted them. Click on our Books page to see what we’ve been reading and what we thought. We will add more detail to some of our reviews soon.

Currently we are reading Morris Gleitzman’s “Then”, the sequel to “Once”, which we read last term. There is some good news for those who love the books and can’t wait to read the next bit: we read on the internet that there will be a third book in a couple of years, called “Now”. I wonder if there will be a happy ending?

Post your thoughts in a comment.

We always have a class novel “on the go”,  so to speak. Today, Mrs C finished reading “Holes” by Louis Sachar – we’ll be publishing a review of it in the next week or so. We’re going to watch the movie next, and compare the two stories. Meanwhile, we love to hear of books that other classes recommend for teachers to read out loud.

Check out our Books page to see what we’ve read so far this year.

All of our grade members are currently trying to meet the Victorian Premier’s Reading Challenge. To meet this challenge students must read 15 books by August and ten of the books must be from the recommended reading list. Some of our students have taken to the challenge very quickly, reading several books during the recent term break.  Links to the Challenge reading lists can be found here. For our grade, Mrs C also has a printout of the list for grades 5/6 in our room for browsing, and Mr H in the library has set up the catalogue so that you can search for just Challenge books. The town library will also be able to help students to find books. Too easy!

Grade 5/6C students may log onto the website with the username and password they got in class, and from there they may add their own reading to their online log. It’s good practice of online skills and it will save Mrs C a heap of time too! Well done to Zoe, who was the first class member to take on this task for herself.