5/6C’s Class Blog 2008

”Once upon a time lived a girl named Tracey. But thats in the past of course, she’s dead now. I’m here to tell you the classic story of How My Friend Was Murdered!
It was a dreadful night and the rain was pouring but worst of all, there was a killer in sight. Her name was Micky and she was known for her craziness of murdering people with an axe.
That night Tracey was out for a walk as well as her chooks on a leash. She saw a dark shadow in the distance. Suddenly it came charging for poor young Tracey. Tracey reconised the muscley figure of Micky and decided to start sprinting.
Tracey was much too fast for Micky and her tough abs so instead she just threw the axe straight into Tracey’s back. But that didn’t stop Tracey, she kept running with the blood running down her back and on to her chooks.
Eventually Tracey started to slow down from starvation so she headed towards her mega shredder factory where she put all of her chooks into a mega shredder and ate them all up. Except for one which she ate raw. Just as Tracey was licking her fingers from such a good meal she forgot all about the killer that had been stalking her. When Tracey wasn’t looking, Micky and her evil powers pushed Tracey right into the largest shredder. Out the other end came Tracey sliced, shredded and dead.” 

”AND THAT’S THE STORY OF HOW MY FRIEND WAS MURDERED!”

The End

By Stacey and Nikita

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.

The most popular books being read at our school so far are The Potato People, by Pamela Allen for the juniors and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl, for the middle school. In the senior school there is a very wide range of books being read, but the one read by the most students (three!) is Specky Magee by Felice Arena and Garry Lyon.

What’s your favorite book? Why is it your favorite?

Photo credit: Cat Reads, Originally uploaded by Litandmore

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.