Today was World Read Aloud Day and we celebrated this in my Grade 2 – 7 ICT classes at school with Nali’bali. We downloaded Nal'ibali's #WRAD story, A Party in the Park, on our Chromebooks, and we all read together in unison. Then we discussed the story in the form of an oral book review. The children loved it.
Nal'ibali aimed to get 1 million families to pledge their family to read aloud the Nal'ibali special story on World Read Aloud Day 2022 - 2 February. If only parents could realise and embrace the importance of regular reading in brain development – if only they could see the big picture about this. They would then definitely make reading aloud to children a daily priority!
The importance of reading aloud to children
Here are some useful quotes from articles and studies about the importance of reading aloud to children:
“Reading regularly with young children stimulates optimal patterns of brain development, which helps build strong pathways in the brain and in turn builds language, literacy, and social-emotional skills that can have life-long health benefits.” - from '‘Reading to young children develops their brains.' https://bit.ly/3KYQnxr
"A child care provider reads to a toddler. And in a matter of seconds, thousands of cells in these children’s growing brains respond. Some brain cells are ‘turned on,’ triggered by this particular experience. Many existing connections among brain cells are strengthened. At the same time, new brain cells are formed, adding a bit more definition and complexity to the intricate circuitry that will remain largely in place for the rest of these children’s lives.
As we come out of the Pandemic, let's prioritise reading aloud to children in order to develop their reading skills. The long-term benefits are immeasurable.
Oaky and the Virus: written by Athol Williams and illustrated by Tarryn Locke. Published by Theart Press
I am a primary school teacher – a technology integration
specialist, and I used a Grade 1, a Grade 2, and a Grade 3 class to help me write this review.
We downloaded the book from the Oaky website to our Chromebooks, and used it as a class read-aloud in the three classes. We all read aloud at the same time, in unison. Each class loved the experience because the book was very relevant to the COVID pandemic. The three classes helped me write parts of this book review.
Oaky and the Virus is an educational and fun story about two acorns, Oaky and Oaket. The two acorns learn how to avoid a virus when it comes to their town. The book is the first in the OAKY series of 7 books that follow the adventures of OAKY, an acorn who grows into a big oak tree.
In Oaky and the Virus, Oaky and his sister Oaket hear about a dangerous and tiny virus that has come to town. It could make people very sick. That means the virus could also make them, Oaky and Oaket, very sick if they caught it. The two acorns think of ways that they can protect themselves from the virus and also keep themselves feeling positive and hopeful. Oaky wants to help his anxious sister, Oaket, feel safe. He teaches her a song about how she could protect herself from the virus so that she will feel comforted when she sings it.
The song is available to listen to on YouTube.
What did we like
about the book?
All three classes liked the book because it is about the Covid19 pandemic, and children everywhere are worried about the pandemic. The book gives good ideas for keeping oneself safe and positive. The pages are brightly illustrated and written in a large, clear font, which makes reading a pleasure for Foundation Phase learners.
The common favourite part of the story was when Oaky thinks of ways of protecting himself and his sister from the virus. The classes liked Oaky, as a character, because he thought of ways to help keep him and his sister safe, and he didn’t give into fear. He was kind to Oaket. Some children said they feel a bit like Oaket at times, so they liked that way she felt happier when she knew how to protect herself.
Do we think the book could be improved?
All three classes felt the writer should have created the song to a well-known tune so that they could sing-a-long. They tried fitting the words to 'The wheels on the bus' which added another fun aspect to the lesson. The Grade 3s also felt that the book didn’t have enough excitement for them. They suggested that the writer should have added some more relevant scenarios to make the story more interesting, such as: - hearing about a friend whose parent was very ill from the virus - maybe one of their own relatives could have caught the virus but fortunately didn’t have to go to hospital. As a result Oaky and Oaket had to be careful to keep away from the relative.
Would we recommend the book to a friend?
Everyone said yes to this. They let that the book gives children hope in the midst of a frightening pandemic. The Grade 1s and 2s gave the book five stars! The Grade 3s gave the book four stars!
An important point to mention is that at the end of the book there is quiz. My three classes had clearly absorbed the story content as they were able to answer all the questions in the quiz.
This is a lovely book. It is available to purchase or as a free download from www.oaky.com. The publishers recommend the book for Grade 1 - 4 learners.
Although we do Coding lessons at school every week with our Grades 1 - 7 classes, we always participate in the Hour of Code.
What is the Hour of Code?
The Hour of Code is a one-hour tutorial designed for all ages in over 45 languages. It is run in 180 countries from 7 - 12 December - although one can do it any time. We always choose November at our school. There are loads of different options based on your students' age etc on https://code.org/learn. The Hour of Code is a global movement to introduce people of all ages to computer programming in a fun way, and it certainly achieves that. Our students love it.
For this lesson I wanted the Grade Threes to research an endangered animal, and to try and rephrase what they read in their own words. This is a task one needs to start as early as possible at school so that students don't get into the habit of plagiarising by copy and pasting.
How did we go about the lesson?
1. After finding out what the students already knew about endangered animals we watched a video and answered questions about them. The video was the engaging, short video entitled ‘Endangered animals’ by the SciShow Kids: https://bit.ly/3Ed7hUU.
2. The class was then given a selection of animals to choose from - gorilla, leopard, rhino, sea turtle, giant panda, tiger, or blue whale, - and they found out more about the relevant animal using the search engine Kiddle: https://kids.kiddle.co/.
3. After reading about their selected animal using the Kiddle browser, the students opened their template downloaded from Oakdome.com entitled ‘Animal Research Paperless Graphic Organizer’ https://bit.ly/31aajdZ . They then filled in their answers as far as possible in their own words by researching the key words in the template.
4. Finally they turned in their work so that I could take a closer look at it. They did well I thought,
Here are some examples of the finished products
The examples are by Kaleb,Carol, Elia and Lily. (The students always use their online names when they produce work in ICT)
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For this lesson I wanted the Grade Threes to research an endangered animal, and to try and rephrase what they read in their own words. This is a task one needs to start as early as possible at school so that students don't get into the habit of plagiarising by copy and pasting.
How did we go about the lesson?
1. After finding out what the students already knew about endangered animals we watched a video and answered questions about them. The video was the engaging, short video entitled ‘Endangered animals’ by the SciShow Kids: https://bit.ly/3Ed7hUU.
2. The class was then given a selection of animals to choose from - gorilla, leopard, rhino, sea turtle, giant panda, tiger, or blue whale, - and they found out more about the relevant animal using the search engine Kiddle: https://kids.kiddle.co/.
3. After reading about their selected animal using the Kiddle browser, the students opened their template downloaded from Oakdome.com entitled ‘Animal Research Paperless Graphic Organizer’ https://bit.ly/31aajdZ . They then filled in their answers as far as possible in their own words by researching the key words in the template.
4. Finally they turned in their work so that I could take a closer look at it. They did well I thought,
We have joined the Colour poem Global project started by Linda Yollis http://goo.gl/YtbFkg. The Grade 3s did Orange Poems today as this is the Orange week. What I love about Global projects like these is that the students also enjoy them and participate fully. They love looking at the Twitter hashtag to see what other learners from other countries have written.
Skills learned
We used PowerPoint and we learned the following skills:
After creating the poem, centring the words to make it look like a poem
Using Google Images to find many orange images
Formatting the background and selecting a matching colour
Keeping to a diamond shape and using nouns, adjectives and adverbs
Creating the poem
We decided to do a diamond-shaped 9-lined poem all related to the orange pictures they had selected, with the format of:
One word
Two words
Three words
Four words
Five words
Four words
Three words
Two words
One word Examples
Here are some examples:
My evaluation of the lessonEveryone got finished in this lesson. However sme left out the middle line of five words. It was a fun lesson with everyone thinking around orange. The learners loved it.
In this post I report back on introducing the African Storybook website to a Grade 3 class. We used a fun method which I have called ‘The Story Circle’ Students always love it when a game-like activity is used in a lesson.
A discussion about the African Storybook website
After discussing the amazing African Storybook website and its stories and looking around the website I instructed the class to each choose a different story from the category First Paragraphs. I had written out the name of the story I wanted each person to look for and distributed these on pieces of paper.
Reading the stories as a story circle
I set a timer and we begin reading for 3 minutes. When the timer rang, we stopped reading and moved to the next computer on the right. We then read that story. We followed this prpcedue until we had each read at least four e-books.
Reporting back on a story
In our report back session each student reported back on the last story they had read I used this lovely idea ‘Retell Rope’ idea’ found on Pinterest. This was a fun way to reinforce the different aspects of a story. Students were able to help each other if part of the story couldn’t be recalled.
The students enjoyed the activity and asked if they could do it again sometime. Warning: If you use this method, be prepared for moans and groans when the timer rings and students have to move on without completing the story.
Earlier this term, whilst researching on the Internet, I came across two posts on adjectives that fascinated me. The first was a post in a Grade 3 blog showing two photos of an activity on Adjectives http://goo.gl/2BtmFo (see one of the photos below). The second post was a video on the use of adjectives in descriptive writing found at http://goo.gl/OmZ77H This gave me the idea of doing something similar to both of these posts with a Grade 3 class and including technology. The students enjoyed the activity so much that I decided to write a blog post about it.
Step 1: Create a template for the students to use I figured this could be created on two A4-size pieces of paper joined together with a piece cut out for the head. I created the template for the students and it can be accessed here.
Step 2: Explore adjectives with the class and how they can be used in descriptive writing The next step was to talk about the importance of adjectives in writing. We revised the meaning of adjectives. I read the class a very plain paragraph that had no descriptive words and asked them to draw a quick picture using a drawing programme they were familiar with (in this class Paint). All the pictures were different. Then I read the same paragraph but this time with lovely descriptive adjectives and asked them to draw the picture. This time the pictures were very similar because the adjectives had led a much clearer image being imagined. Download the adjectives template as a PDF Step 3: Brainstorm positive adjectives that can be used to describe other students in the class. We now had a brainstorming session on adjectives that could describe others in the class. The instruction was that the class should use only positive words but that no names should be mentioned. As the students called out words I typed them out and displayed them on the screen via the data projector. These were left on the screen as prompts for words during the remainder of the activity.
Step 4:The students think of 20 adjectives to describe themselves and fill them in on the provided template Since the school I volunteer at uses Windows computers we used PowerPoint for this lesson. However Keynote on an iPad or a Google Presentation on an Android tablet would have done the trick as well. Step 5: The templates are completed and printed As far as technology skills are concerned this was a good way of working creatively with font types, font size, colour and font position. As far as using adjectives is concerned the students enjoyed thinking of positive words about themselves. Step 6: Print the templates, cut out the head space, glue the two pages together and draw hair using regular crayons Here is a photo of some of the final results of this activity.
Step 7: Create a description of oneself using the selected adjectives In the next lesson this part of the lesson will be tackled.
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