Spring Rainbows

So after the extended writing task we did previously, I decided to take inspiration from the Big Write initiative and continue giving the girls the opportunity to write a longer uninterrupted piece every fortnight.

As Spring has just begun, I decided to use it as the next prompt - as it was easy to get some firsthand experience and so start some good discussions encouraging rich vocabulary before sitting down to do the writing task.

You can download the writing prompt here.

Before showing the girls the task, I took them to Martineau Gardens so they could actually do the colour hunting challenge mentioned in the prompt. We took photos of the things they found and when we got home I turned these into a collage:

You can download our picture collage here. (the bird pictures I took from Google, since I wasn't able to get a good photo of the robin and magpie we spotted!)

On a different day, before writing, we used their photos as inspiration for a spring time rainbow painting. First, they drew the outline of a rainbow onto white card. Then, they used their photos as reference for drawing pictures in the corresponding stripe of each colour of the rainbow. Finally, they coloured it in using both wax crayons and watercolours - which was their choice! Z did her own version too, mashaAllah. I was really impressed with her patience, which I think is better when she's together with her big sisters as she wants to copy them!

When it came to the actual writing, I think I picked a day when they weren't in the mood for it... We recapped their current target of writing in past tense (and staying in the same tense!) then set the timer for 30min, put a video on YouTube for background Spring sounds, wrote in silence - just as in last time with the desert prompt - but they weren't that motivated this time. Rather than force them to continue or force the issue, I sat with them individually afterwards so they could give themselves feedback: a mark out of 5 for how well they kept in past tense (they both thought they did well at this), a mark out of 5 for how good their descriptions were and a target for next time. M especially was disappointed with herself ("I didn't write enough though!") so insha'Allah they might be more focused next time? I think going to the gardens, which I thought was good for inspiration, might actually have made it more difficult since they were trying to write from memory rather than their imagination? Will try something completely different next time, insha'Allah!

Dictionary Work & Nonsense Poems

This week, we focused on nonsense words in poetry.

We read a few examples (e.g. On The Ning Nang Nong by Spike Milligan) and the whole of the book Noisy Poems from the library - their favourite inside being one about spaghetti (Spaghetti Spaghetti by Jack Prelutsky) so we decided to use it as inspiration for their own nonsense words poem.

I asked them which food they loved which they wanted to write about and they both agreed on cake - specifically the cake they had on their 5th birthday! So I put up a picture of the cake and asked them to describe it, making notes on the whiteboard as a spider diagram as they went, prompting them with the idea of the five senses for description as well as how it made them feel.

Once they had a lot of ideas down, we tried writing the first verse together - what kind of rhythm did they want? Did they want their poem to rhyme? Which lines? We came up with:

You look so yummy,
I can't wait to eat you,
You're beautiful, colourful and

And? So they needed a word to rhyme with "yummy"... so let's make one up! Any word which ends in an "ummy" sound! And they went with "numummy".

In this way, crossing off ideas from the spider diagram as we went, we worked together to turn their ideas into a poem with nonsense words.

When the verses were all done and we read it through, I asked them if it was clear their poem was about cake... To which they said no! So what could we write so the reader knows they're talking about cake? And so we ended up with the couplet at the start and end of the poem.

Now the poem was complete on the whiteboard, I typed it up into Word so they could take turns on the laptop editing it to make it more personal. Then I printed it out for them to illustrate.

Our next few Literacy lessons were spent looking at dictionaries: what are they used for? (meanings of words) How are they organised? (alphabetically) How do you use them? (look up the word you don't know) What information do they have inside? (also the kind of word, e.g. noun, adjective, etc.)

Then, I gave them a template so they could make a mini dictionary for the nonsense words in their cake poem. First, they highlighted all the nonsense words in their poem and wrote their words alphabetically down the page on the template. Then they wrote what kind of word it was (they were all adjectives!). Finally, they wrote what their nonsense word meant, referring back to their poem to help them.

You can download our dictionary template here.

Editing a piece of (descriptive) writing

Following on from their typing practise, we used their typed up work as a basis for learning how to edit.

Since we only have one laptop, the girls needed to take it in turns. F went first with M watching, as I talked her through what she needed to do. When she was done, we discussed together what they thought the steps were for editing something and I wrote these on the whiteboard:

1) Read your work.

2) Fix any mistakes.

3) Change words which are the same.

4) Make it sound better!

5) Add more detail.

Then M had her turn, with me talking her through, but also referring to the steps we'd generated together. F watched for a bit then went to play but in the same room - so she'd keep chiming in to help when she overheard M getting stuck. 😂

These are the before and after results:

For point 2, fixing mistakes, they found spelling errors and use of the wrong tense (I didn't realise they didn't know the meanings of past/present/future! So we discussed this... Though I decided to omit the word "tense" for simplicity's sake). For point 3, they tried to get rid of too many "and"s as well as repetitive nouns or adjectives. For point 4, this was changing boring words (e.g. where M changed "buzzing" to "noisy", although personally I prefer the former!) and rewriting sentences (e.g. F shortened her original to "I could smell stinky mud"). For point 5, they just added an extra adjective here and there.

A little while later we edited a different short description they had previously typed up, except this time I printed it out for them to practise handwriting instead.

I asked if they remembered the steps for editing their writing, which they did! So once they told me what they were, we went through and did them one by one. For each point, I asked them to choose a different coloured pencil to underline with - so they knew when they were copying that if they came across something underlined, that meant they needed to change or add something! Once we'd been through and underlined everything and I'd written correct spellings on the whiteboard, I left them to it to do.

Typing practise...

In half an hour (timed using our sand timer), the girls managed to type:

This was their first time trying to type on the laptop, aside from the odd word here and there for a Google search, and it was copied from the descriptive writing they had done earlier so they could concentrate on the typing as opposed to needing to think what to write too.

It's funny how teaching things like this reminds you of how you take basic things for granted - such as needing to press the space bar in between each word! - and how everything is new for them at this age... Even using the mouse was a challenge! The spacial awareness and physically moving something on a horizontal plane to control a cursor on a vertical plane... Again, something we really take for granted being so used to it!

To prepare them for eventually (insha'Allah!) being able to touch type, I encouraged them to use both hands to type: the left hand for the left side of the keyboard and the right hand for the right side. They were also free to use whichever fingers felt most comfortable for whichever key. 👌

Using the 5 Senses for Descriptions

As planned - albeit a few months later! - I took the girls to the first of several different locations so they could practise using their five senses to write more detailed descriptions. We also recapped all five verbs in Arabic, too.

Our first stop was the woodland area of Martineau Gardens.

We focused on one sense at a time, making notes of at least one example for each, then adding in anything extra to any other box once they'd got into it (we walked round with clipboards which they loved the novelty of!).

You can download the worksheet template here.

Later on at home, they used their notes to write sentences underneath a picture of where we went.

First, we read a couple of examples of descriptions from their favourite book series at the moment: Willow Valley. The opening chapters always begin with a nice description, so we read a couple of examples and talked about which senses were being used for each thing.

e.g. "It was a bright, sunny morning in Willow Valley. Butterflies danced through meadows of clover, birds sang in the trees, and shimmering dragonflies fluttered over the river. The cave-houses on the rolling green hills all had their doors open wide as happy little animals pattered out to play in the sunshine." [Willow Valley - A Seaside Rescue, by Tracey Corderoy]

I asked them if that description was better than just saying, for example, "In Willow Valley there were butterflies, birds and dragonflies. Animals played outside." They said the description in the book was better because they could imagine being there!

I let them free write, so no spelling aid, reminders about capitals and full stops, spaces between words, etc... and put the sandtimer on for 30min so they had a set time to write in - in between talking to each other and to me before they wrote their sentences down! One of them finished within the 30min, the other decided she wanted to write for a little longer. I'm thinking of using this piece of writing for some editing work later on, giving them the chance to check for mistakes and improve.

You can download the second worksheet template here.

I left a blank in the title so we can re-use it for a different location and they will already be familiar with what to do. I might print out a photo again, or leave that space empty for them to draw a picture... Or we might link to ICT and have them type up their description into the file on the laptop. Will see how it goes, insha'Allah!