[T1W8] English Updates

Dear Parents/Guardians,

1. The class have done their group-constructed mindmaps and pupils have learnt to provide feedback using the strategy "2 stars and a wish".

In this strategy, they tell their peers two things they like about their work (2 stars) and one thing that their peers can work on improving (wish). An example for the 2 stars and a wish for the group mind-map looks like this:

• (STAR) Very detailed mind-map.
• (STAR) Very neat handwriting.
• (WISH) I wish you can write more examples.

To consolidate the pupils' learning, they are each tasked to do up their personal mind-map on parts of speech using an A4 sized paper. They have been given 2 weeks to work on it and it will be due on 1 March.


2. We have started on the next big book 'What's This', a non-fiction text where pupils learnt more about the different parts of a frog. There are many content-specific vocabulary words related to frogs, such as snout, webbed fingers, sticky discs etc.


3. Last week, we had a Learning Fest in school for English, Math and Science. The pupils had a talk conducted by the NLB, with the librarian sharing interesting facts about Roald Dahl. This year celebrates his 100th year anniversary as a children Literature author, and our pupils learnt more about his works like The Twits, The BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Matilda.

We were engaged in the class activities where the pupils watched excerpts of The BFG (the older animated movie, available on YouTube) as well as the trailer for the upcoming live movie of The BFG. Working with their clock buddies, they discussed to plot a nightmare that will be presented to the Queen of England to convince her of preventing the human-eating giants from entering their country,

Pupils also had an experience of designing a writing quote poster with the materials provided for them.


4. Pupils learnt more about words with suffix-y as having or being. Suffix -y usually changes a noun (thing) or verb (action) into an adjective (describing word). For example:

• cloud à cloudy
• dust à dusty
• jump à jumpy

5. The class was taught how to write a personal recount on the topic of Fear.

I shared with them my experience of fear and demonstrated how I plan for my story. The pupils were then given 15 minutes to list down their experience of fear in their class notebooks (free-writing). They wrote about why they experienced fear in these events.

Using a mentor text, I discussed the key features of a personal recount and how the writing plan translated into the actual writing.

Selecting one idea from their free-writing, pupils organized their thoughts using the personal recount plan. An additional vocabulary list on the varied degrees of fear was also given to pupils.

Pupils are then given three days to complete their personal recount (due 26 Feb).

In the coming week, pupils will be learning to do peer editing and feedback, and we will be using the strategy "2 stars and a wish".


Thank you.

Sincerely,
Ms Cindy Chan