The Magic Painting

"It was the brightness that attracted me to the painting. I could see the light through the sheet. I grabbed the sheet and threw it to the side. I quickly covered my eyes with my hands. It was too bright. I reached my hand through the painting and quickly I jolted back. It felt hot. The mist covered my hands.

My hand was pale and I thought about jumping in, but would my mum miss me if I couldn't go back through the painting?"

by Kaleb (aged 11)

*****

Often in class we use amazing pictures as 'seeds' for our writing sprints and story planning. This snippet by Kaleb was inspired by an amazing picture called 'The Journey Begins' by Daniel Lieske.

Please Resist Me

This Saturday, March 21st, is Harmony Day and to acknowledge this, our class are performing Luka Lesson's poem Please Resist Me in our assembly.

We have been talking about the diversity of the Australian population and the importance of understanding our country's past. We have had many discussions about what this country looked like prior to 1788, and the enormous changes which occurred from this time onward. We have talked about the fact that Australia is now a multicultural country and the importance of accepting other cultures and respecting the input they have into our wider Australian culture. This poem challenges people's beliefs about some of the many groups which have helped to enrich our country, asks us to thin about our past, and poses a number of interesting questions about the ways we can act to ensure a positive future for our country.

The clip below is a wonderful performance of this poem.
Enjoy.

You're Grown Up

"She said growing up isn't a choice, it's a chance. A chance to experience new things, places, and people, a chance to live and make changes. Changes only mature people can handle. She always told me growing old and passing is a thing no one can change, so take life and live it the way you want to."

by Chelsea (aged 11)

Cloud Talks

"The swing sound like rusty old scooters, but that doesn't bother me at all. When I hop on it and swing, I reach for the clouds. We have short conversations, the clouds and I, but its always good to talk."

by Faith (aged 12)

Freedom

"When I swing I have no care in the world, and a sense of freedom around me while I try to go as high as I can. When I swing it feels like I’m a bird flying high in the sky."

by Dylan (aged 11)

Simile, Metaphor, and Personification

We have been focussing on trying to incorporate simile, metaphor, and personification into our writing snippets lately. In the next couple of weeks, our class will begin working on narrative writing and this will be a great opportunity for the students to utilise their skills and knowledge about figurative language in a larger writing context.

I have set the students a challenge to see if they can locate some examples of simile, metaphor or personification in some of the books they are reading at home.

Today Maddison found a great example of some similes and metaphors in the opening paragraph of Layla Queen of Hearts by Glenda Millard:

"Griffin's daddy said Layla had been sent to comfort them after Tishkin went away; like an arm about their shoulders, a candle in the dark, or like golden syrup dumplings for the soul."

I look forward to more students using their wonderful detective skills and noticing examples of these three things in their reading.

Welcome to the Ink Pod

Although we are only just heading into our fifth week, I have already been inspired by some of the amazing writing coming out of the class so far this year. I spend half of my time wishing I could teach literacy/writing all day, and the other half of my time wishing I could scurry off to a corner to write for myself.

The students have embraced the idea of figurative language and are showing a wonderful understanding of literal versus abstract. They are experimenting with using metaphors, similes, and personification in their own writing, and have been coming up with some amazing thoughts during our 10 minute writing sprints.

This is a space for the students to share their work and receive constructive feedback. While we are always looking for the positives, we also need to continually look for ways to "Bump it Up" and make improvements while crafting our pieces of writing.

Check back regularly to see what the students are posting and the new types of writing they are experimenting with.