Congratulations!!

Congratulations to our six students for their amazing work in their writing over the last 15 weeks.  You have all worked extremely hard and have made amazing progress in your writing.  It was my absolutely pleasure to share your successes at the 'Impact Day' in Christchurch on Tuesday, and some of the challenges we faced.

I look forward to monitoring your continued progress over the rest of the year.  Thank you for being a great bunch of students to work with.

Ms. M

Asian Food Experience Recounts

ASIAN EXPERIENCE

Matt

Welcome to the emotion roller coaster that will destroy and revive your taste buds! On the 21^st of July 2015 we all tasted weird looking food from Asia. Ethan, Ella, Shaun, Gideon, Chelsea, and… I tried all foods!

First we all started staring at the food, frightened of what it was going to be.  Ms Mannix gave us all chopsticks which made it more challenging for most of us.

The first food we had was anchovies which no one liked apart from Ethan.  It tasted terrible, it smelt terrible and everything about it was terrible.  It looked like a dried up worm that had been fried and put in the fridge for 100yrs.

The next food we had was spicy broad beans. They looked bigger than wasabi peas.  As I picked one up  and ate it, I straight away wanted another one. Surprisingly, it wasn’t spicy.

The third Aisin food was banana chips.  They weren’t too hard to pickup apart from everyone’s chopsticks were in the way!  Anyway, I was excited to try this flavour because I am such a fan of potato chips.  The banana chips looked oily and a bit burnt but I didn’t care, these are chips I’m talking about.  So as I picked one up I took a sniff.  It smelt like banana but not your average banana you would buy at the super market or wherever you go.  It’s the destroyer of my kind – it’s banana PASTE!!

The fourth food we had was one of my favourite foods. It was… the one and only SEAWEED! I loved the seaweed because it’s in one of the best food in the world - sushi. The seaweed tasted salty but yummy. It was like dried green paper that could stick to your tongue.  But there was one problem with it – I couldn’t pick it up so when Ms. Mannix wasn’t looking, I grabbed it with my hand!  I think seaweed was the best food I tried.   

   Asian food taste test

Disgusting.  Did I eat that?

Our group of six got the delightful chance to try four disgusting foods from Asia.  I was starting to think Ms Mannix didn't like us.

I opened the door and smelt a weird fishy smell.  I was sure Ms Mannix's surprise was not going to be good when I walked in, there was a plate of something smelly. It was covered to hide what her surprise was, dun dun dun.

Then Ms Mannix uncovered a plastic plate of yucky looking food.  When I picked up the first food which was the dried anchovies.  I grabbed the chopsticks she gave us and grabbed an anchovy, I sniffed it then I put it in my mouth.  It was disgusting and hard to get down.

When I picked up the next food and that was the spicy broad beans.   I picked one up I stuffed it in my mouth.  It was really good. I thought it would be gross.  Some other people in my group did not really like them but I sure did.

When I picked up the seaweed I talked to myself saying seaweeds so good on sushi,  it's gonna be even better by itself.  I tried it, I hated it.  It was all sticky and salty.  I was the only one in our group of six that disliked it.

The last food we got to try was the baked banana chips, I liked the banana chips it was like toffee covered banana instead of toffee covered apples and I think  everyone else enjoyed the banana chips as well.

We have done a lot of activities in ALL but I think this was the most gross out of all.  I really enjoyed the spicy broad beans so I have got my mum to buy them at the supermarket.

Other than the seaweed and the anchovies, I really enjoyed this experience.

By Chelsea

Asian food tasting

Ella

EWW! Yuck! “What was she thinking?” I looked at what she had put on the plate, I was shocked in terror. Our group of six were scared that Ms Mannix was going to poison us.

First I picked up the chopsticks and looked at those wooden crusty things.  I said to myself, “What are these?” I picked one up and smelt it.  It smelt like rotten fish.  As I brought it closer to mouth I dropped it. It was crunchy, dry, hollow fish.

I moved on to the spicy broad beans.  I picked one up and put it in my mouth.  They were so yum.  The shape was like a jellybean.  It got more spicy as you bit into it.

Next up was the baked banana chips.  As I brought it closer to my mouth it smelt like buttery oily banana.  I put it in my mouth and bit it.  It was disgusting.  They were dry, crunchy, slices of banana.  I used to like them but these ones, ewwwww

Now seaweed ewwwww!!!!!!  It smelt more fishy and salty, as I brought it closer to my mouth.  Seaweed on sushi is good but by itself, yuck.  

Out of all the activities this was the most unusual thing we did.  That was the end of our Asian food tasting. Finally!!!!!

ASIAN FOOD

I opened the door my knees shaking.  I looked at the food that was uncovered.  My taste buds where going to blow 3, 2, 1  BANG!!!  This looked like a dog’s breakfast.  Did Ms. Mannix expect us to eat that?  The six of us thought Ms. Mannix was going to murder us but with food.  I always expected it but never knew until then.

Then Ms. Mannix reached down and gave every single one of us these wooden sticks. In excitement I was eager to try new things (especially with chopsticks.) First in line was the dried anchovies, with these chopsticks.  I went first for the rooty, minty thing.  I opened my mouth and took the first bite.  I didn’t know what this was? The spicy, crunchy, sweet seafood taking over my mouth.  As soon as I digested it I wanted to see what was next.  Actually I didn’t want to see what was next.

Then the spicy broad beans (ha, ha Broadgreens!!!) They looked tasty, smelled tasty but would they taste tasty? I took a bite.  O.M.G, those broad beans were the best. They tasted just like they looked. :)  

What could possibly be next after trying the dried anchovies? I didn’t really want to try anymore. They looked like a baked banana. Anyway back to eating the food.  I tried to pick up those banana chips with the chopsticks. As always everyone was looking at me getting ready to ask me what they tasted like as soon as I was finished. They were good, great if you will, even though I would still say the spicy broad beans were the best. I think the baked banana chips deserve 2nd place. ;)

Last but not least, the wind blowing seaweed, that looked like a flag, that’s been dipped in a slimy bucket of slime. This one will and should be the last one. As I brought it closer to my mouth I just remember how much I like seaweed. As I took a bite……… THE BEST THING EVER I love seaweed as much as I have enjoyed my time in ALL.

by Ethan :) ;)

Asian food experience

Gross! Those dried anchovies were disgusting! Most of our group was scared when Ms. Mannix uncovered the plate with the paper towel on Tuesday 21 July at Broadgreen.  "Why are we doing this?" I thought to myself.  "How much money did she spend on us? Is she trying to murder me with food?"  Then she said she wanted us to try new food so we all had something to write about.

The group and I were wondering what was under that paper towel. As usual Ethan looked happy.  Looking back at my photos, I looked like I was about to barf.  "Really Ms. Mannix!" I yelled at her in my head.  That's when I had the best idea ever!  I thought to myself, "If I finish these, fast then I don't have to suffer."  Next thing I knew was Ms. Mannix giving me chopsticks.

First up was the dried anchovies.  I took a little nibble and yelled "Ugh!" There was no way I was going to finish that, so I threw the rest in the bin. I swallowed the rest with with a shiver up my spine, which was the hardest thing I ever did.  The anchovies looked and smelt like a fish that was in the desert for five years.  

Next was the spicy broad beans which weren’t spicy at all, but quite good at the same time.  It looked to me as if everyone enjoyed them.  Most of us, even accidentally called them spicy broadgreens.

We also had banana chips dipped in butter, and seaweed, which both had mixes of funny, weird and normal faces.

That day went on and on with smiles, laughs and fun.  That day I learned I need eat and avoid different food.

By Gideon.

Flavour foods  

Bang! A explosion of death defining flavors hit the back of your tongue. Ms Mannix the torturer, gathered these foods from hell.  We were stuck in a small room.  Who was first?  Matt, Ella, Gideon, Chelsea, Ethan or me? She gave us these drum sticks.  “How were are going to eat with them?” I thought to myself. If these are my last words, I have died on the 21/7/15 at Broadgreen.

Chop!  As I ate the dried anchovies, my stomach growled and flavours danced on my tongue, as memories of dried crushed up rotting bone raced through my mind. Then my hand raced to my water bottle.  As I drank, the water slowly slid down my throat.

Next the spicy broad beans that looked like small tiny lava pods from the centre of the earth.  Chop!  All the herbs exploded on my taste buds. Everyone was ready for seconds.

Then the buttered banana chips.  They didn't have much flavour.  Nothing to write about really, just a butter taste.

Finally the seaweed. It had a sugar-glass texture and sticky to a wet hand. As I ate the seaweed it was like a trap.  My mouth couldn't open. Finally I swallowed that sticky mess.

In my conclusion, the food tasting experience was great.  My favorite was the spicy broad beans. Ethan liked everything but Gideon not so much.

Shaun

Writing a Recount Introduction

We are learning to write an introduction for a recount.

What does it need?  Together we came up with a success criteria:

• we will tell, who, what, when, why, where, how
• we will use capital letters at the beginning of sentences
• we will use fullstops at the end of sentences
• we will use past tense
• we will use first person (I, we, me)
• we will use an interesting and impacting first sentence to capture the audiences' interest.

So, do you think we have met our criteria?  Have a read at what the students have written so far.

Eww!  Yuck!  What was she thinking?  I looked at what Ms. Mannix had put on the plate.  I was shocked in terror.  Our group of six were scared that Ms. Mannix was going to poison us!

Ella

Bang!  An explosion of death-defying flavours hit the back of your throat!  Ms. Mannix, the torturer, gathered food from hell.  We were stuck in a small room.  Who was first?  Matt, Ella, Gideon, Chelsea, Ethan or me?  She gave us some 'drum' sticks.  How were we going to eat with them?  I thought, "If these are my last words, I have died on Tuesday 21 July at Broadgreen."

Shaun

Disgusting!  Did I eat that?  Our group of six had the delightful chance to try four disgusting foods from Asia.  I was starting to think Ms. Mannix didn't like us.

Chelsea

I opened the door, my knees shaking.  I look at the food that was uncovered, my taste buds were going to blow... 3, 2, 1... bang!  This looked like a dogs breakfast.  Did she expect us to eat that?  The six of us thought Ms. Mannix was going to murder with food.  I always suspected it but never knew until then.

Ethan

Gross.  Those dried anchovies were disgusting.  Most of our group was scared.  Ms. Mannix uncovered the plate with the paper towel on Tuesday the 21st of July at Broadgreen.  "Why are we doing this?" I thought to myself.  "How much money did she spend on us?  Is she trying to murder me with food?"

Gideon

Welcome to the emotion roller coaster that will destroy and revive your taste buds! ...
To be completed soon
Matt

Asian Food Tasting Experience

Our new writing genre is recount.  A recount is a recording of events that have happened. It has specific structure and features that makes it a recount.  

So students had a shared experience to write about, I bought in four Asian snacks for the students to try.  Let's just say, the looks on their faces when I uncovered the dish of "goodies" was priceless....!! ;)

Using chopsticks to pick up the items was an experience in itself.  Trying the dried anchovies, baked banana chips, seaweed, and spicy broad beans was a challenge and experience the students won't forget in a hurry!  Some students were keen to give things a try, others found it something out of their comfort zone!  The spicy broad beans were a hit and we all ate the rest of the packet!  Success with the chopsticks was varied - some picked it up really quickly, others struggled to pick up anything but kept trying!

Students recorded information about the smell, look, feel, and taste, plus any comments and thoughts.  

Tomorrow we will start formulating a report!  Enjoy the pictures!!

Ms. M

 =

Creative Writing.....

What would this journey be like??!  Would you be scared?  Here is what the students came up with for a short story, staring with....

"I sat on my bike and looked..."

I felt scared.  "I don't wanna do this," I said to myself.

I looked down where it was going to end.  Is there water?  Am I going to fall off?  I pushed off with my shaking feet.  I went over the bumps, the track never ended.  I started to go sliding off my seat.  My hands were frozen from the cold air.  I jammed the brake on and my back wheel stopped.  I flew over my handle bars and slammed on the slide.

Ella

I saw my dad behind me.  He said, "Come on!"  So I took a big breath and closed my eyes.  I pushed the pedal and.... I started screaming, super-loud like a jet.  I was also going super fast like a jet.  After two and a half minutes and halfway down, I was still screaming.  BANG!!!  I'm in bed, screaming still but I stop.  I go back to sleep.

Matt

I started leaning forwards and my bike started moving.  I screamed, "I'm going down!"

As I went down the people up the top started putting bubbles down the slide.  I looked down.  I started feeling like I was going to throw up.  I leaned to the side and threw up over the edge.  When I saw the bottom there was water.  I started freaking out.  I fell in the water.   My brain finally stopped going round and round.

Chelsea

I felt dizzy as I fell down the slide.  The cold mist air hit me in the face as I released the pink old rusty bike.  After three minutes I reached the bottom.  Then the bike hit my head, flew into an old tree and hugged it.  In the end I broke both legs and my right arm.

Shaun

I felt scared.  What will happen when I get to the bottom?  What is at the bottom, in fact?  Just then, I heard someone running to me.  "Stop!!" I screamed but I said it too late.  I was already going down the slide at 150 miles an hour.  

"Help!" I screamed.

Ethan

I sat on my bike and looked for any chance of death.  Looking down for so long was bad and I closed my eyes and let go of he brakes.  The first jump came and I landed it with a big THUD!  After that, the second jump came and I lost my bike, so I activated my parachute.  I floated down safely and landed.

Gideon

Winter Poems

Winter

If winter was a colour
It would be a thick bright blue.
If winter was a feeling
It would be as cold as a freezer.
If winter was a smell
It would be like thick, brown hot chocolate.
If winter was a sound
It would be as loud as a winter wolf, howling in the forest.
Winter is snow frozen on ice.

Gideon


If winter was a colour
It would be a thick white
If winter was a feeling
It would be a cold thick layer of smashing ice towards your face.
If winter was a smell
It would be a very inviting tomato soup
If winter was a sound
It would be like hearing the kettle whistling on the stove.
Winter is chilly.

Ethan


If winter was a colour
It would be a frosty icing with a deep dark blue core.
If winter was a feeling
It would be a cold jet boring into you.
If winter was a smell
It would be a big pork roast that was cooked to perfection.
If winter was a sound
It would be a cracking roar as you walk across thin ice with wild wind racing at you.
Winter is ice.

Shaun


If winter was a colour
It would be a sharp icy blue.
If winter was a feeling
It would be like shaking hands with a snowman.
If winter was a smell
It would be like eating a bowl of boiling rice pudding.
If winter was a wound
It would be like hot wood popping in a toasty fire.
Winter is a blizzard.

Chelsea


If winter was a colour
It would be a soft light white.
If winter was a feeling
It would be frost bitten fingers.
If winter was a smell
It would be my mum's hot and yummy roast.
If winter was a sound
It would be a cracking hot fire.
Winter is freezing.

Matt


If winter was a colour
It would be frosty ice white.
If winter was a feeling
It would feel like your face was on fire.
If winter was a smell
It would be like hot bubbling chicken soup.
If winter was a sound
It would be like milk getting whipped up for a hot chocolate.
Winter is snowflakes.

Ella


If winter was a colour
It would be a dull lifeless grey.
If winter was a feeling
It would be pinched cheeks and runny noses.
If winter was a smell
It would be the hearty aroma of a bowl of veggie soup.
If winter was a sound
It would be whistling, whirling wind and crunching ice.
Winter is hibernating.

Ms. M

Report Writing - Researching

Now that we are completely revolted-out by instructional writing, we are now moving onto writing reports.  Yesterday we sat down and talked about the purpose of writing a report - to share information, to educate, and to find out.

We decided we would write reports on an animal of choice - not a typical cat or dog, but a type of animal that it would be interesting to learn about.

As a group, we set the criteria of what the structure of our report would look like:

1. title
2. introduction - animal, classification, country it is found, size, predator/prey
3. habitat - where it lives
4. diet - what it eats
5. body covering - fur/feathers/scales/skin - can it camouflage?
6. life cycle
7. interesting facts
8. conclusion - is it endangered?

We made a small booklet to keep our notes in.  Students then decided what animal they wanted to find out more about.

• Chelsea - cheetah
• Gideon - leopard
• Ella - serval
• Matt - meerkat
• Ethan - praying mantis
• Shaun - salt water crocodile
• Ms. M - orca

However, we also discussed that this might change, depending on the availability of information we could find.

Today we went to the BIS library to start our research about our animals.  We got out encyclopaedias and found that most animal information is located in the non-fiction section around the 590s.

Next, we walked down to Infused in Stoke to have a hot chocolate (needed by all budding writers to help with inspiration :) ) and discussed what a bibliography was, its purpose, and what information is needed.  We also talked about how we were going to find information in the texts we find:

- use an index

- look for main ideas in the text that covered the categories we had selected

- make short notes in our booklet under the titles (we can write full sentences later)

- use skimming and scanning techniques to find specific information

Our next stop was Stoke Library where a lovely librarian gave us a lot of her time and helped us source books on our various animals.  Gideon, Ethan and Shaun found that they needed to change their topic (leopard, praying mantis, saltwater crocodile) and then were able to find more information for their report.

Unfortunately, time just went too quickly.  We are hoping to make a return trip tomorrow to get more information from the books we found - at least we now know where to find them!  What a lovely morning out doing some writing!!


Ms. M