Literature circle ~ Time capsule: Pompeii and Herculaneum

the conversation continues...

Writers' journals riddles and poems

Every Wednesday we start the day with observational drawing and writing in our writers' journals. There's a fad for riddles going on at the moment, along with our usual passion for poetry...

The helicopter
by Francesca

The helicopter falls around and around
in circles
and flutters in a slight breeze.
It got rumpled
rain's sliding down the base of the wings
it cracks and crackles
in the breeze
fluttering downwards.


Colours
by Peta

There are colours
that nobody can name
it has patterns of all kinds
slippery like silk
it has some bumps
that can only be felt
they can't be seen
but they can be touched
the vampire teeth
want to hurt the people
the taste buds 
want to taste some more blood.


The shadow's shadow
by Ella

My shadow has a shadow
and the shadow is me
we are exactly the same
but when he goes away
I am all alone...


Guess what I am!
By Mel

I sparkle 
in the sunlight
I glow 
the colours of the rainbow
I also can crack again
in any shape
What am I?
                     ... paua!

I swirl around
like a tornado
I'm sharp 
at the end and
I get fatter
at the bottom
at all times
I can hear
the light
waves of the sea
What am I?
                     ... a shell!

I twirl
and twirl
around as
I get down
like a helicopter
I am light brown
and I have veins
that you can see.
What am I?
                     ... a maple tree seed!

As I hit the ground
I go
thump thump
thump and 
sometimes crack.
I can be found
nearly everywhere
in different way.
What am I?
                     ... a rock!

As I fall I land in heaven and turn
from green to yellow to orange
to red and finally to brown
and lie there
but I can still
travel around the world.
What am I?
                    ... a leaf!


Morning
by Luca

feet frozen,
cheeks tingling, zip tightened
hands shoved into pockets

I trudge up the alleyway

My hair flying back into the wind


Fuzzy figure
by Dot

It's fluffy like a toy dog
it's brown like chocolate
it's warm in my hands
it's fuzzy and fuzzy and
fuzzy!

Clock
by Dot

tick tock tick tock
it's a clock
now it's 6 o' clock

Untitled
by Dot

A smooth
rich caramel brown triangle 
on my grey hard desk
stripes of light,
bright and white
looks like a yellow lemony colour
on the back


Untitled
by Aliya

one small cut shell
with a hole
shaped like the sea
one little shell with lines curved
like the calm sea

The frame
by Aliya

It's a mini frame of shell
as white as snow
sitting on my dull grey desk
and it looks magical


The shell
by Amelie

the wavy swirly pattern on the shell
pale orange, skin colour, creamy white,
a blob of colour on the beach,
plainly the colour of bleach!


Who am I?
by Tama

It's in the middle
but with more than one
it's very quiet
but only when told
it has a clown
that's upside down
but all of them
are really stars.
Who am I?
                    ...M13!


Changes
a found poem by Joe

The north wind doth blow
Dragon smoke rain wind
who has seen the wind
to a red kite
windy nights stopping by woods
on a snowy evening.


Untitled
by Saoirse

the orange egg rubs against my palm
making me quiver
all over.


The flappy thing
by Mahinaz

the flappy thing is
if you throw it up
it comes down
like a helicopter thing
at the top 
and it goes light to dark
and there's a circle on it
and at the bottom it is little
and beautiful


What am I?
by Jamieson

I look like gas
I live under the water.
I am tasty to eat.
What am I?
A piece of paua.

I am black and white
and like a stick.
What am I?
A tiger snake.

I am black and yellow
and I am venomous.
What am I?
A black and yellow frog
that is venomous.

Room To Improve - Brown Kiwi's play

Jamieson's rocks and minerals

This morning Jamieson carefully brought two boxes of precious rocks to school.

Everyone chose their favourite one:

Francesca: "I like this one because it has patterns coming out from the middle"

Breea: "it's nice and smooth; really really smooth."

Amelie: "I like that crystal because it's quite shiny and I like the shape of it."

Breea wrote a poem about it:

Right and white
for everybody
sparkly and rough and hard
a pinch of red
of wool on the head.
I'm gonna call it Mark.
It's pointy on the bottom.
It doesn't hurt too much
a little grazed on the inside
a little grazed on the out.
It's middle name is Sassy
and it cannot be changed
by the law of Wellington's mayor.

 Joe: "I like them because they're quite shiny and they glow and the colour fades together and they're quite unique."

Aliya: "I like this because it's big and shiny and you can hold it easily. And it can't cut people and it's interesting."

Cody: "I like this one because it's shiny and pointy on the top and it looks like it has real crystal."

Noah: "I like all the details of both of the carvings of the mouse and the crocodile. They're both really cool."

Jamieson's dad carved this mouse when he was five years old, and he carved the crocodile when he was only eight!

From the left, we have obsidian, silver in the middle, and rose quartz on the right.

This is a Maori spearhead carved out of obsidian. Cody wrote a poem about it:

Jamieson's obsidian

Shiny and bright
all black, curved and Maori
off the top of a spear.

Luca also wrote a poem about it:

Knife

Its smooth surface
glints like the sea on a dark moonlit night.
I turn its crinkled lining up to the light
and it turns a pale milk colour.
The knife.

This is a fossil egg. Laila wrote a poem about it:

An old man, old and young
was having fun
today.

One day an animal came out
out came a dinosaur,
a triceratops.

Mel wrote a poem about this rock; it's a polished piece of amethyst:

Shining bright
under the light,
it curves and swirls.
Cracks widen
and let out
happiness of purple.
Shining bright
under the light,
swirly whirly twirl.

The ginormous crystal | by Quinn

The crystal shines in the sunlight.
I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw it.
I said to myself, who brought in this crystal?
It is amazing.

Kaitiaki of the stream - literature circle

One of our reading groups read Kaitiaki of the Stream, and then ran a literature circle discussion about it. Literature circles are a way to think about a piece of writing in different ways. Each person takes on a different role: Discussion Director, Connector, Illustrator, Word Master, Passage Picker, and Summariser. Then the Discussion Directors lead the discussion about the piece of writing. Have a look at some of our thoughts about this School Journal article.

Click here to download an MP3 of the article.

Peer mediator play: Tama, Peta, Francesca, Nolan

How wolves can change the land

Today we watched this clip (again) about how wolves changed the land in Yellowstone National Park. We are learning to take notes, so we watched it five times, adding keywords, diagrams, and ideas to our notes each time we watched it.

Here's our glossary:

and an example of some notes:

Poetry by Francesca

           The wind

The wind comes the wind goes

It disappears as the wind passes by

It can be soft it can be hard

It can be icy it can be hot

No matter what type it is, it is still wind.

         

          Floating down

Patches of black appear on the spotlight of the stage

Quivering like helicopters

The wind blows by and it twirls around and around

It’s veiny and silky tattered in rips

It’s dark and light

Guess what I am?!

Literature circles | Passage picker

Today the Brown Kiwi reading group shared their ideas about the passages they'd found interesting in 'A Vanishing Art', an article about making Tapa cloths in Tonga.

Amy got out some real tapa cloths for us to feel and look at. Joe made a connection - when we looked at the back of one of the tapa cloths, he thought it looked like Mali mudcloth (which Gretchen taught M13 about on the last Art Day).

Francesca read out part of the article:

     Tapa's main function is to be a gift that's passed on again and again at weddings, 21sts, funerals , and other important events. In this way, it binds communities and forms links between past, present and future.

She also made a connection; Francesca thought this was like the marae because the marae also supports people who died because the ancestors are on the walls and the roof. We've done this in our class too - another connection!

Can you guess what this is...? | By Francesca

Sharp spiky rocks form up
from the hard surface.
A dark black path
leads beneath the hill.
At the front it looks like
a giant snail shell
crawling across the rocky sand.
A slim pokey stick
sneaks out the back.
It's like a mini
microphone!

Grrreat graphs

This week we are learning about pictographs.  Earlier on in the week we made a pictograph showing what we did on holiday.

Yesterday we started making M13's hair colour pictographs.  First we sat in a circle and said the colour of our hair.  Amy made a tally on a piece of paper, for each hair colour. The most people had light brown hair.

Then we made our own graphs.

We talked about what makes a good pictograph. We agreed that we needed to:

1. measure the width of each column evenly
2. draw pictures of the hair colour
3. write a title and underline it
4. keep the columns straight
5. show accurate data
6. be neat

Using these criteria, we marked our graphs ourselves using red pen.  Then we had a look at each other's and decided which ones were good examples to put on the blog. Here they are:

By Noah

By Saoirse

By Meline

By Peta

By Francesca