​Over the last few weeks, the children have been learning about playscripts. The children have learnt that they are laid out differently to stories. Firstly, that they have a cast list and different scenes. That they have the speech element, written differently to usual speech and that the stage directions are written in italics. The children also learnt about shifts in formality, such as the setting for the scene written in a formal manner. They also learnt about how to convey the different characters, such as a King with no contractions and always speaking formally, compared to that of a peasant, who would use contractions and colloquialisms. In addition, the children have learnt about the use of ellipsis, subordinate clauses, conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions. Of course, all of this could not have happened without the children acting out the scene and portraying the different characters. The children's next task, is to act out their playscripts.
Over this writing unit, the children have used Creativity, Cooperation and Independence Gems.

​We have introduced our new class book to the children today, The boy at the back of the class. This is one of my favourite books and I am so excited that we are using this for our guided reading lessons. Today, we just looked at the front cover of the book and the children made predictions about the book from what they could see. I was amazed at how reflective they were as we talked about the illustration and the children came up with so much about the character. They suggested that he was lonely; that he would sit at the back and have no one to talk to; that he wouldn't want to join in with class discussions; that he had a different religion; he might be bullied and have no friends and that he clearly didn't have much money. The children then wrote their predictions about the book, mainly focusing on the character on the cover. I was amazed that they they were able to think so deeply about this showing some really creative and reflective thinking. We used the creativity and the reflective gems today,