We have started the term off by learning about the recent mission to the moon - Artemis II. For the first time since 1972 humans have been able to get close to the moon.
We knew that some of our kids would know lots about this and others would find this new information fascinating. We got straight into using this mission as inspiration for our writing.
We also used some visuals to engage our imagination and inspire some interesting looking words. We could use these to paint a picture in our readers minds.
We really focused on discussion, honing in on our oral language first.
We know Writing is an incredibly complex task. Our students are learning to manage multiple things at once: They are constantly asking themselves:
What do I want to say?
Which words should I use?
How do I order these words?
How do I hold the pencil? What does a 'b' look like? Which way around again ? What letters make the sound 'ch'?
Last but not least, punctuation and all those writing courtesies we tend to do automatically as adults.
We have always known that 'Great writing floats on a sea of talk'. By focusing on oral language, we can help students master their content and ideas, vocab and sentence structure before they pick up a pencil. Discussion helps in the composition of our thoughts and ideas so that our writers can focus more on the mechanics of writing.
Our job is to inspire and start the discussion, prompt and push for more and plant 'ideas' that can help little minds wander into new places and spaces. Encouraging lots of curiosity !
Mondays task was a quick write with some simple success criteria. It was a task that is going to be repeated in different ways and it will certainly enhance this terms Inquiry learning. We are going to be engaging our imaginations and the exciting part is not knowing where this journey is going to end up !
Below are some examples of our quick writes. You can see some examples of writers dialling up their strengths of Creativity and some beautiful examples of personal voice shining through. Imagine Pole Vaulting through space !
Our students took some great learning risks and were not held back by not being able to spell interesting words. This part we can tackle in the editing phase. These are some unedited pieces of writing and others are still going through this writing process. Hopefully you can see the potential that we can in these quick 15 minute writes.
Success Criteria worked well as the students knew exactly what their writing needed. It is going to be an exciting term if this was day 1.
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