English

Term 1 Week 8

Familiar reading

Using familiar texts;

  • Read to a friend

  • Read to a book buddy

  • Film yourself on an ipad (Change focus eg fluency and phrasing or reading to punctuation)

  • Checklist bookmark (Who, What, Where, When and Why)

  • Pretend you are a teacher and read to a group.

Spelling focus

Soudwaves program Students enter this code girl344 at www.soundwaveskids.com.au

Grammar focus Adjectives

Most adjectives of one syllable form the comparative by adding 'er' and the superlative by adding 'est'.

When an adjective ends in 'e', add 'r' for the comparative and 'st' for the superlative forms of the adjective.

When a one syllable word ends in a consonant-vowel-consonant, add the consonant and 'er' for the comparative form and the consonant and 'est' for the superlative form.

When the adjective ends in a 'y' and is preceded by a consonant, change the 'y' into 'i' before adding 'er' for the comparative and 'est' for the superlative form of the adjective.

When the adjective has two or more syllables, the comparative is formed by using the adverbs 'more' or 'less', and the superlative is formed by using the adverbs 'most' or 'least'.

Some adjectives are compared irregularly. This happens when their comparative and superlative forms are different from the original adjective.

Activities to support the strategy

Activity 1: notebook thick and thin descriptions

Ask students questions about the topic to identify their prior knowledge. (What are comparative and superlative adjectives? Also ask questions which explore their understanding of adjectives and their purpose in texts.) Use the Notebook Thick and Thin descriptions. Have students compete in small groups to complete the 'thickest' description for each page. Springboard from this activity to write or find the 'thinnest' of stories and then elaborate them into the 'thickest'. The thinnest stories may be the students' own previous work.

Activity 2: Guess which one

Take the students into the library / computer lab / garden and get them to identify three objects of the same kind, e.g. books, computers/ laptops, pencils, desks, shrubs or trees, seats. Put students in groups and get each group to differentiate between the objects. Each group must write at least four sentences that compare the objects they have chosen. Get each group to share their conclusions with the rest of the class who raise their hands if they agree with the comparative judgment made by the group. This gives the group feedback on the accuracy of their comparisons.

Activity 3: use superlative and comparatives with peers

Reinforce comparative and superlative adjectives by having the students in the class compare themselves. Organise the students into groups of four and get them to spend a couple of minutes each telling the rest of their group about themselves. They are then to make as many true sentences as they can to compare each other. They can base their comparisons on:

  • how big their families are

  • how many after school activities they engage with

  • how many books they have borrowed this term/ year

  • how many times have they played on the computer this week

  • how much television they watch

  • what time they arrive at school

  • how big their school bag is

  • how close they live to the local shops.

At the end of the time allocated for the activity, get some of the students to read out their sentences.

Activity 4: magazine cut out

Pairs and groups of students find and cut out pictures of different objects, animals or people from magazines. Students are to make up two sentences each for the comparative and superlative degree by contrasting and comparing the objects in the pairs of pictures. Students also need to identify the form of the comparison (comparative or superlative) used in the sentence. Students are to work individually and within a set time limit.

The teacher can also source as many pictures as they choose, making the pictures relevant to topics being taught in class across Key Learning Areas.

Activity 5: adjective game on a board

Use a 'Snakes and Ladders' game board or other produced one or a teacher/student made board (printed and laminated). Use a dice and game pieces.

Print and laminate the adjective cards - the ones below. Each card has one adjective. The student must express a superlative or comparative adjective in order to take a turn in the game. Students need to be careful that some of these are irregular.

Adjective cards (PDF 59.07KB)

Activity 6: introducing adjectives smart notebook

Go to exchange.smarttech.com

External link

and look at the Introducing Adjectives Smart Notebook. Select parts of the Notebook useful for your class. You must register for and then sign into the Smart Exchange website to access files.

Activity 7: grammar blast

Use the resources found at http://www.eduplace.com

External link

. To play Grammar Blast, have two teams. A representative (change after each question) from each team takes it in turn to answer the questions with the team with the highest score winning.


Writing focus: Sentence structure – prepositions

Prepositions usually come before another word, such as a:

  • noun.

  • pronoun.

  • noun phrase.

  • gerund (participle of verb - ends in –ing – but used as a noun, e.g., There was a lot of joking during the script writing ).

Guided and independent activities

Texts that students are currently studying could be used to determine and highlight prepositions. Students can highlight prepositional phrases and discuss their purpose. They can explore innovating texts by changing prepositional phrases. Students should be encouraged to share the changes and provide justifications as to choices made.

Activities to support the strategy

Activity 1: prepositional poetry composition

Complete prepositional poems

Students write a prepositional phrase one each on a strip of paper. These are grouped, corrected and rewritten if necessary to correct spelling, enrich vocabulary choices etc. They are then organised and added to in order to create the best poem using the following formula.

  • Line one: first prepositional phrase with the topic.

  • Line two: where.

  • Line three: where.

  • Line four: where/what.

  • Space.

  • Line five: feelings concerning topic.

e.g. thanks to Cathy

At the Beach

at the beach

amid many sunbathers

on my blanket

with my book

in the beautiful sunshine

is my favourite place to relax!

And

At the Mall

at the mall

with my mum

near the dressing room

in the ladies clothing department

around the perfume and jewellery

is the WORST place for me to be!!

Activity 2: prepositional pictionary

Create a set of cards with prepositions that are ‘drawable’. Like Pictionary the drawer has a time frame to draw with a time frame for students to guess. Accurate guesser gets to then select a new card and to draw it whilst the others guess.

Activity 3

The teaching of prepositions both for comprehension and for production could be taught in this approximate order:

  • spatial location – answers the where question (e.g. The clock is over the chalkboard). Often signalled by the prepositions above, below, over, in, on, under, underneath, at

  • the relationship between two or more things. (e.g. I found my pen lying among the books). Often signalled by among, between, beside, in front of, behind, next to, with, and in the middle of

  • direction- identify the direction an object moves in space (e.g. The bird flew over the tree.–direction in space). Often signalled by to, toward, into, onto, by, over, under, past, at, from, on, off, and out of

  • locates something in time – Often signalled by at, on, by, before, from, since, for, during, to, until, and after

Websites for each type of preposition with activities to learn about and use (all these sites are without pictures):

Spatial location

Prepositions of time