OUR OTHER BLOGS PART 1: WRITING BLOG

Since the first day of Year Two, we've been posting to our writing blog, the 2M Writing Gems.

It's been a place for us to learn how to post and comment as we share our writing with others and one of the coolest things to happen is that some of our parents are posting to the writing blog too!

Our writing blog is a place where we can independently post about whatever we choose. Our posts to this blog are like 'first drafts'.

As we are writing and before we publish, we focus on the CUPS.

The CUPS are-

C - is for capitals. Do I have a capital to start my sentences and for the names of people, places and thin

gs

U- is for understanding. Does my writing make sense?

P-is for punctuation. Have I used my full stops, commas, exclamation marks,

question marks or speech marks?

S-is for spelling. Are all my words spelt correctly on my post?

At the moment, our posts to the writing blog are mainly recounts but as we learn about other text types like narratives, descriptions, opinions and explanations, we will be attempting them as well.

We'd LOVE for you to encourage us with our writing, so please visit our Writing Blog often and leave comments that will help us become better writers.

MORE POETRY

Our adventure with poetry continues.
Now we are investigating ACROSTIC poems.


ACROSTIC poems are poems that use the letters of the topic word to start each line.
All the lines of the poem have to describe the topic.


Like a Diamante poem, an ACROSTIC poem does not rhyme.
As we have been taking part in the Monster Project, we all chose 'monster' as the topic of our acrostic poems.


Here's Keely's poem-

Monster teeth that can break a bone

On the move, it's very fast

Never stop eating people

Scares the people all the time

Terrifyingly large claws

Every one is frightened by him

Roars so loud it hurts your ears.

and here's Tom's poem-




Monstrous claws

Out and about all night

No-one knows him

Scares everyone he sees

Terrifying teeth as sharp as swords

Everyone hides from him

Runs like a cheetah.




Have you tried writing ACROSTIC poems?
What topic might you choose?


If you would like to know more about ACROSTIC poems and try writing one, head over to READ, WRITE, THINK.

DIAMANTE POEMS

This post by guest blogger, Ebony is a cross posting from 'Diamante Poem' on her blogfolio.


On Friday we learnt about Diamante Poems.                                     
A diamante poem is a poem that follows certain rules. 

On the first line you have one noun, 
on the second line you have two adjectives, 
on the third are three verbs ending in -ing,
on the fourth line you have four nouns or a short phrase, 
on the fifth line you have three more verbs ending in -ing,
 on the sixth line are two adjectives and 
on the last line, you're back to one noun.

There are two types of Diamante poems - synonym where the two nouns mean the same thing and an antonym, where the two nouns are opposites. 


I did a Synonym poem, and my Synonym poem topic was Monsters. On the bottom you have to choose a topic that is the same. I did creature. So did the rest of the class. Here is one that I did.

                                   Monsters
                         scary,weird,
                  roaring,stomping,hiding
               scares people in there dreams 
                 crawling,creeping,annoying
                           big,hairy,
                            creature

And heres the Antonym poem that I did.
                               puppy
                          playful,cute,
                    jumping,digging,barking
                  loves playing around house
                   meowing,sleeping,yawning
                             loud,soft
                               kittens


Have you ever written a Diamante poem before?
What might you write about?


If you'd like to try writing Diamante poems, head over to Read, Write, Think.


by guest blogger,
Ebony

OUR WRITING BLOG

This is a guest post written by Lara on behalf of the GEMS.

We created a writing blog for us to share our writing with others and teach us how to post. Our blog is called 2m Writing Gems.

This blog helps us open up our writing to others around the world. It also helps us to improve our writing and get quicker with our typing.

As we are writing and before we publish, we focus on the CUPS.

The CUPS are-

C - is for capitals. Do I have a capital to start my sentences and for the names of people, places and things

U- is for understanding. Does my writing make sense?

P-is for punctuation. Have I used my full stops, commas, exclamation marks,

question marks or speech marks?

S-is for spelling. Are all my words spelt correctly on my post?

At the moment, we are writing recounts but later on in the year, we will be attempting other text types like stories, descriptions, opinions and explanations.

We'd LOVE for you to encourage us with our writing so please visit our Writing Blog often and leave comments that will help us become better writers.

BIG UNIVERSE - a GALAXY of READING!

2M, I know that you all love reading, so you're going to love this site - BIG UNIVERSE.

Big Universe is a fabulous site because not only can you read and purchase published books on -line (in a larger format than LOOKYBOOK) but you can also create your own!

At Big Universe I found a book about CHINA. I know that many of you are interested in learning about China's history of dynasties and emperors, so this book is perfect for you.

The other great thing about Big Universe is that if you really love a book you can share it with others. Simply send them a link to the book by email.

So explore BIG UNIVERSE - you'll be impressed and...I'm expecting lots of emails!

'AI' CHALLENGE

Today we were investigating words containing 'ai' because one of our word wall words this week is 'explain'. We have explored 'ai' words before, so to make it more interesting, Mrs M challenged us to think of COMPOUND WORDS that contain 'ai'.

Patrick started us off with the following words -

railroad

rainforest
rainbow

chainsaw

paintbrush

raincoat

sailboat

CAN YOU ADD TO OUR LIST?

THERE MUST BE MORE!

PUNCTUATION CHALLENGE

Today Mrs M challenged us.
We had to fix up some sentences.
First we had to read the sentences then put the punctuation in.
Here is what Mrs M gave us.

it is the start of the term we are going to be scientists investigating life on the ground

Can you punctuate the sentences?
There are 4 errors.

by Isaac.

PLAYING WORDO

We have a new game called WORDO that we play during Literacy Block and we thought the best way to tell you all about it was through a VOICETHREAD.



Leave us a comment to tell us the words you have found or, if you have a VOICETHREAD account, join in the conversation on the last slide of the VOICETHREAD.

THE BIG THURSDAY CHALLENGE!

Every Thursday, as part of our WORD WALL activities,

we put the week's word wall words in ALPHABETICAL ORDER.

It's easy if each of the words start with a different letter,
like this week's word wall words do.


Can you put last, during, might, family and hide in ABC order?


But what strategy do you use if they start with the same letter?
Today Mrs M gave us a big CHALLENGE.

We had to put some words from the 'Silent E' video in ABC order.

The words were - pin, hide, dame, pine, dam, hid

We'd had words before that had the same first letter and even the same second letter.
We know we have to go to the second or third letter to compare the ABC order but these words had many of us tricked.

CAN YOU PUT THEM IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER?

WATCH OUT FOR SILENT 'E'

SILENT

2M, here's a video I found that will help you remember the effect a 'silent' or 'magic' e has on a word.
You did a great job today turning 'cap' into 'cape', 'cub' into 'cube' and 'slid' into 'slide'.

Some of these words are mentioned in the video.
What are the pairs of words we didn't think of?
Watch the video to find out.


Did you work out the pairs?
Can you think of any more?
Leave a comment to let us know what you discovered.
You can also play an a_e game at STARFALL.

PLAYING MYSTERY WORD

Every Friday, we play MYSTERY WORD with our word wall words.
Here's a VOICETHREAD we made to explain what we do.

WORKING WITH WORDS

During Literacy Block,
we spend a lot of time 'working with words'.







Each day, in our Literacy groups, we do different activities. Today our choices were:

* using magnetic letters , lego letter tiles or playdoh to make the week's word wall words.

* using our word cards to do a Word Sort - how have these words been sorted?

* putting word wall words in ABC order - sometimes that's easy, other times we challenge ourselves.


What strategy did Johanna use to put her words in alphabetical order?



* going on a Word Walk or a Syllable Hunt. We love to put on the LARGE glasses or use the magnifying glassses.
They seem to help us 'find' the words more easily!


Here is a video Patrick made to explain his Word Sort.

We'd love to know what activities other classes do to help them learn about words.

Leave us a comment or send us an email at 2mgems@gmail.com

WORD WALL - WHAT DOES THAT SOUND LIKE?

Today we did WORD WALL for the first time this year.

We LOVE doing Word Wall.

Doing crazy actions, cheers and songs makes learning to read and spell our words more fun and exciting.

Our favourite cheers are OPERA, BOXING, PUMPING IRON, and BATTER UP.

Here is a post some of us made last year that explains our Word Wall routine.

This year we'd like to share with you what we SOUND like during WORD WALL.

Here is the first in a series of short PODCASTS that will introduce you to some of our chants.

IF YOU HAVE ANY IDEAS FOR SOME NEW CHEERS WE COULD DO, PLEASE LET US KNOW IN A COMMENT OR EMAIL US AT 2mgems@gmail.com

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