Learning task 1: Introduction
- Saturate the room with teddybears, books, posters, etc.
- Share "teddy" illustrations from a selected book. Children discuss the bear and build up a list of descriptive words. Read the story. Discuss the "character" of the bear. Does it fit with the pictures and the feeling we had developed about the bear from the pictures? Repeat this activity over several days with different texts. Reverse the activity so children hear the story first. The teacher could also colour copy several different bear illustrations, read the story and have children select the illustrations that they think best fit the story. Use these sharing times to talk about the placement of text and illustrations, size of the text and illustrations and possible art medium used. Also discuss the narrative quality of the texts. How are they all the same? What kind of writing are they? Build up a list of features.
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Share background information on teddybears.
Refer to Exploring Language:
Contrast narrative stories with poems about teddybears.
Poems
There are many different forms of poetry. In this unit my intention was to make the children more explicitly aware of poems as a form of writing but not to emphasise any particular form.
My class of new entrants described poetry in the following way:
Poems
* Make your voice bounce when you read them
* Might have lots of commas
* Might rhyme
* Might "paint" pictures in your head
What kind of writing is this? How do we know? How is it different to...?
Brainstorm the features of each genre and record them on a chart for children to refer to. Poems can be enlarged on teddy shapes for children to read independently.
Published on: 07 May 2009
