We can't wait. We see the kids grow in confidence, friendships forged and obstacles overcome. So, say good bye and be ready, for they will come back......... tired, grumpy, hungry and changed, form the better.
Hello Mudda, hello Fadda, here I am at, Camp Cooba.
Well, the time of year has finally arrived when we take your angelic children away from you for three days and return them......survival experts. Rough and ready and able to endure the hardships of school camp. Ready to take on the world!
Amazing Narratives
This term the 5/6 unit have been working on creating amazing narratives. We've learned about starting our narratives with a 'sizzling starter', we've worked on characterisation and using descriptive language. We've also worked on having a detailed orientation, climax and resolution.
We hope to publish our work and create a unit book so that we can read each others work.
Below is a great example of an amazing narrative created by Sean Gobbitt.
We hope to publish our work and create a unit book so that we can read each others work.
Below is a great example of an amazing narrative created by Sean Gobbitt.
A Raging War
Crunch! My bare feet crinkle on the gravel road. The soft zephyr sends me shivering in my cloth rags that I wear as clothes. The concrete houses look like cracked cardboard boxes. Rubble lies everywhere, remains of the bombs that were dropped here. I can pick up the sounds of bombs in the distance. I am an orphan, on the run from the military soldiers that are trying to kill me.
My name is Mohammed, and I live in the capital of Syria, Damascus. I am nine, and I have short, stringy hair, and a thin and pale face. My body is small, and my tummy gripes with hunger. I haven’t eaten in a while, since my parents got captured. I have been living on food that I have found on the street. I don't think my parents are alive. I haven't seen them since they got captured by the Syrian government. They got captured when I was three. They hid me in the bin and they sacrificed their lives for me. How will I ever repay them? Suddenly, loud noises fill my ears, like bees buzzing around my head. Oh no. No no no no no no no. It's the sound of a Syrian military truck on the horizon, doing random checks of the city. I better run.
I gallop frantically through the forest, occasionally looking back for danger. I am in real jeopardy now. The cacophonous curses of soldiers ring in my ears. They know that if I get through the forest and cross the Turkish border, they will not be able to catch me. I can feel the hard tree roots digging into the soles of my feet. I suddenly burst out of the forest, feet aching and bloody, pools of sweat dripping down my face, gathering salty beads of H2O on the tip of my nose, finally dropping onto my rag that I wear as a shirt. I bolt on, putting my life into the power of my legs, giving them control over my body. Suddenly, God seems to have seen me, because I catch a glimpse of a lorry in the distance. I run up to it and capriole into the back, landing in sacks of rice, wheat and flour. Hopefully it takes me to Istanbul, where the government can’t find me. But as soon as this chance comes, I realise that I have been a bit too cocky. This was all a trap.
The driver stops the car, pulls open the back of the truck, jerks me out and throws me vigorously to the ground. Now I see that he is not a trucker, he is a sergeant. His stare is as cold and hard, like that of a grizzly bear looking into its dying preys’ eyes, grinning with satisfaction. His face is cimmerian. Before I know it, I am knocked out cold, kidnapped, and taken to the military base. I don’t know what happened after that, but I do know that I will have some serious consequences charged against me. I haven’t obeyed government rules. I have let down my country, I am a fugitive, a guerilla. But I have thought wrong.
They wake me up. I am shivering. The cold concrete floor doesn’t help much either. My cuffs are undone. I am walked out of my cell and taken to the army training camp where other Syrian soldiers are training on obstacles. The sergeant tells me to join the other men, training to be strong, training to risk their lives for their country. This will be a long and hard life, living with the army.
Everyday, I train as hard as I can. When I finish training, my legs feel like jelly. Every step I take makes my aching body groan with tiredness. As I return to the barracks, legs numb, hands red, raw with blood, I realise that the Syrian government has given me a chance to live, a chance to prove myself reliable and robust, fighting for what is mine, my country. Now I don’t think of my throbbing body or my bleeding hands. I love it. This is how I was supposed to live in the first place. For some reason, I am happy to be with my fellow soldiers, and I am glad that the Syrian military captured me in the first place.
Bang! Bombs and landmines go off behind me. The ground is red with blood, corpses of my fellow mates lying everywhere, attracting flies as much as a beacon attracts attention. I can hear the shrill sounds of gun fires and the falsetto sounds of men shouting for cover. This is death as it is, staring into my terror-stricken eyes, taking me to a land of its own, hell. I dive behind a concrete slab. Too late. A pain stabs me in the chest. I guess this is the end for me. Time to take the plans for my second life into action.
The End
Marvellous Narratives
We are well and truly into our narrative projects. We've got stories about......
Friendship, war, bank robbers, animals, grandpa chocolate and lead guitarists in heavy metal bands, to name a few.
They've been awesome to read and it's great to see the kids starting to use a lot of the writing strategies we've been working on in English. We've seen examples of similes, swapping out common words for more '$100' words, detailed characterisation, sizzling starters and great use of the 'narrative mountain'.
We can't wait to publish the works and put together a 5/6 narrative book.
Well done kids!
Friendship, war, bank robbers, animals, grandpa chocolate and lead guitarists in heavy metal bands, to name a few.
They've been awesome to read and it's great to see the kids starting to use a lot of the writing strategies we've been working on in English. We've seen examples of similes, swapping out common words for more '$100' words, detailed characterisation, sizzling starters and great use of the 'narrative mountain'.
We can't wait to publish the works and put together a 5/6 narrative book.
Well done kids!
The Colonisation of Australia
This term we've been looking at how Australia was colonised after the First Fleet arrived and how each of the states were established.
We've learned many interesting facts. For example:
Did you know that Port Arthur, near Hobart, was established to house the 'worst of the worst' convicts who committed further crimes after the arrived in Australia?
Or that Adelaide was established as a colony where people who had been persecuted in Europe due to their religious beliefs could come and live free of persecution?
Or that the British Government was concerned that the French would colonise Western Australia before them so they set up a military settlement there to have a British presence?
All these facts and more can be found on the maps we completed.
We've learned many interesting facts. For example:
Did you know that Port Arthur, near Hobart, was established to house the 'worst of the worst' convicts who committed further crimes after the arrived in Australia?
Or that Adelaide was established as a colony where people who had been persecuted in Europe due to their religious beliefs could come and live free of persecution?
Or that the British Government was concerned that the French would colonise Western Australia before them so they set up a military settlement there to have a British presence?
All these facts and more can be found on the maps we completed.
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