Science Centre Trip

The Yellow Group were invited to the Aberdeen Science Centre to participate in their new workshop "From Gust to Grid." This workshop explores how wind turbines generate electricity, and how we get that electricity into our homes.

During the workshop the pupils were given the opportunity to create their own miniature turbines and generate electricity! 

J-T particularly enjoyed the workshop and was able to tell the group lots about turbines and electricity, well done!

Maksim said, "I didn't know how hard it was to create electricity!"

After the workshop the pupils were given the opportunity to explore other parts of the science centre. Two pupils enjoyed the 'complete the circuit' wall and found out that the human body is a conductor of electricity! 

Take a look through our image carousel on the left to see the workshop, and on the right to see our explorations!

Miss Bowyer

Show, Don't Tell

The Yellow Group noticed that the author of The Bad Beginning often likes to use a writing technique called 'Show, Don't Tell'. This writing technique is used in various types of creative writing. It allows the reader to experience the story and characters through actions, thoughts, sensory details, and feelings, rather than just a factual description. The class discussed how this could improve their writing.

Firstly, we worked in groups to read some examples from the story. We then continued group work to create our own. For example, we were given the phrase 'the house is dirty' and had to think about ways we could show this. We shared all our ideas on the board and discussed them as a class.

After this we wrote up our own 'show, don't tell' examples in our jotters. These were all based off of The Bad Beginning.

Vladimir said, "This is good because it means our writing will not be boring."

Junior said, "The ones we made as a group were so much better and sounded way more disgusting."

Lilo said, "The descriptions are so much better and make me feel like I am really in the story."

Have a look at some of our work on the right! The pupils came up with some really great descriptions. I particularly liked the descriptions 'there was a musty smell throughout the house' and 'mould encrusted plates' to describe how filthy Count Olaf's house was.

Miss Bowyer

Writing an Interesting Blurb

The Yellow Group have started reading The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket ... with the blurb. However, it was not as boring as they expected! 

The pupils started by completing a reading activity based on the blurb where the deciphered the author's writing style and why it made them so curious to read the book. Jack and Alfie concluded that the author used "reverse psychology" and the more the author told them not to read it, the more they wanted to! Tobi said it was very unique and Alekss said that the negative vocabulary made him curious. We all agreed it was a strange way to market the book, but it certainly worked!

We read the tale of Little Red (Riding Hood) and wrote our own blurbs for it in the style of Lemony Snicket. We highlighted our favourite phrases and made a word bank to help us. We needed to: 

• Write a short summary of the story without spoiling.

• Use direct address.

• Begin with "Dear Reader".

Our challenges were: To organise our writing, to use negative vocabulary and to persuade the reader. 

Lots of the pupils used reverse psychology in an attempt to persuade the reader! All the pupils did a fantastic job.

Miss Bowyer