That Old Washing Machine

Text type: Recount. Purpose: Entertain

WALT use different sentence starters

I know I can do this when:

• My sentences start with different words
• Capital letters to start sentences and for proper nouns
• Some short, sharp sentences
• Some complex sentences
• Speech marks for talking / new line for each talker (Taylor)
• Group sentences into paragraphs (Maia)

My key words: skip, garage, washing machine

At last it looked like my skip was arriving. A big truck started to reverse down the driveway towards our garage. On the back of the truck was a mechanical crane device and an enormous shiny orange skip. In order to get the skip off the truck, the driver had to hop out and operate the crane. “Where do you want it?” asked the driver.

“Just in front of the basketball hoop will be great,” I replied. “Do you think I will have room to get my car out?”

“Yeah, sweet as,” the driver reassured me, as he walked towards the controls on the back of his truck. To me, it was like he was operating a spaceship, the way he was using multiple buttons, pulleys and shafts to control the crane. To him, it was as easy as pie. Yet there was no doubt of the skill involved in getting the three cubic metre bin to sail through the air and land on the perfect spot. Did I mention how narrow my driveway is?

I thanked him for such a great job and just like that, the truck was gone. Left on the driveway was this huge orange skip. It was just waiting to be filled. Timidly, I opened the garage. It was a rubbish dump sprinkled with precious items such as my bike. Staring back at me was the stubborn broken washing machine. There was a battle looming. I strode up to it. Then, very slowly, I moved it side to side, closer to the skip. Eventually, it was time to lift the beast. With all my might I heaved it into the air. I had lifted it close to the ledge of the skip, but it still wasn't high enough. For a split second, I thought the weight might be too much and I would collapse in a heap. As though I had transformed into a weightlifter, I gave one last determined effort and lifted the washing machine up above the skip. Bang! It crashed down into the skip with a satisfying metallic clunk.

There would be smaller battles to come, as I filled the skip. I shouldn't really mention the panic that seized me into action, as the driver reversed down the driveway to pick up the skip and I hadn't quite cleared the garage yet. Nevermind the stuck TV, when I just had to pull it so hard that the power cord ripped out of the set. The driver had it right when he said “that’ll do it”. Forget about the extra rubbish that might have found a temporary home in the skip - I managed to clear it up anyway. Yes, the real story was that I fought that old washing machine and I won.

Sheena Cameron's Sentence Opener Ladder

Exploding Coke Bottle

Writing Purpose: To Entertain

WALT use our senses to describe

• (see, hear, smell, feel, taste)
• different sentence starters
• some short sentences

Swoosh! I can feel the Coke going up my nose. Jaidyn Russell,

Brayden: Boom! I opened the coke lid, Squirt!, The coke shot right up my nostrils like someone shot a shotgun up my nostrils.

“Pop! Boom! Ouch!” as the coke shot up my nostrils. Tracey L

Elijah. The brown liquid covered my face leaving behind a sticky mess.

Matilda  

OH Coke. I ran to it, he undid the lid and the fizzy coke rocketed out of the bottle up into my nostril.

EZRA MORTON

Ka pow! A gush of coke sprayed into my face! I peeped a look. Splash! Coke went into my eye. “Yeow!” I shouted leaping up, dancing around the room holding my eye!

George    Boom the bottle explodes! It looks like whiskers.

Rosie:  Boom! It felt like I had fizzy whiskers. Then it felt like I had fizzy boogers.

TRAYLAN  Pop! pop! oh no is going to pop!

Jacob BOOM!! The fizzing coke went right up John’s nose.

Crystal = BOOM!  Suddenly I can feel the fizzy spraying up my nose.

Shake! Shake! Shake! Pop! The coke lid flew away and the coke went straight up my nose and everywhere else it looked like cat whiskers. (TAYLOR)

It burst on my face like cat whiskers.

Mary Arkell

Class word bank

JAMES ¬ BOOM!! AGH! The coke fires up at me like a volcano.

Kellyanne: I could taste the fizzed coke in my mouth and I could smell the coke fizzing bubbles.

Boom! The coke give me a big mustache. Liam

Boom!!!! I could see a coke bottle on the table in front of me  then suddenly coke burst out like a firework. By Brooklyn

Kyra  I opened the lid and out it sprayed up my nostrils, and then came out like fireworks.

Maia: Not only would it be a coke rocket, it would be a rocket to space!

I smell coke burning through my nostrils at 102 kilometres an hour. Ben!

NASA: Come on I can do the IMPOSSIBLE.                              

Jared: It shot up like a rocket.

KAPOW! Suddenly coke exploded all over my face and the place.  BY JULIUS MONKEY

Cameron: I unscrewed the lid of the coke bottle. The coke shot out of the bottle.

Imagine if a coke bottle blew up in front of you. Boom! Fizz! (Zach)

As he opened the coke bottle suddenly POP! He went back as he got fright from the lid flying across the room. (Kayla)

I could pull it off still unknowing that it was going to go everywhere. Then it exploded in my face. Yum, but it still hurt.(Madison)

Imaginary Cycling

We are learning about safe cycling. These pictures are not examples of safe cycling! Instead, we are using them to motivate some creative writing. Which one is your favourite? Why?

Sky Rider

My First Training Wheels

Your Turn First

Here are some entertaining sentences:

I get pushed on my way! “AHHHH you idiots!” I scream. Ben

I closed my eyes and found that my tummy was feeling a little sick. It felt as if the food and stuff inside it was floating amongst the gravity. Hemani

‘I want to ride my bike, mum,’ I said. ‘Well... ride off a cliff then,’ she replied. ‘Ok, I will then’. Zach

My tummy feels weird like its got butterflies flying around. Imaan

I waited to go to the toilet.4 minutes later. Hurry up! Hurry up!!! Come out. NOOOOO! Shivom

I hope I don’t fall down and get hurt. Emma

This is awesome! Nikitah J.

“Hey,” I say to Elijah, “Do you want to play? ‘I dare you’.” 5 minutes later... Tyrone

I knew I shouldn't of put the helium in my tyres. But there was 10 bucks on the line. Do you know how many cool things you can buy with 10 bucks? Not many, but still it’s 10 bucks. Elijah

Adrenalin rushing. I've just invented the new  MAGIC flying bike!!! Let’s GO! Zeb

“Ahhhhhhh!" I can't believe what I am going to do! Am I crazy? Nakita

I am getting there, I am trying my best to get there. Tracey

Wow this is amazing but there is one problem, how am I going to get down? Bree

I feel like I am going 100 miles per hour! Not. Hannah

I finally reach the top of the ramp, 1km above the ground, adrenaline was pumping, my heart couldn't stop beating. Inderpreet

So I take some deep breaths and say “hasta la vista, baby” as I push off. Marcus

It’s now or never! Cameron

Simple, Compound and Complex Sentences

Today we used this cute dragon photo to inspire our writing. At first, I pretended I had a new pet.

Personal Dragon Pet

In writing, we are learning more about sentences. Sentences are a group of words that express an idea. They have a subject and a verb.

A simple sentence has one idea.

The little dragon wriggled on my fingers.

A compound sentence has two ideas joined by a conjunction.

The dragon is learning to breathe fire and it has lit a candle.

A complex sentence has two or more parts. One part has the main idea and makes sense by itself. The other parts contain information which builds on the main idea. The extra part does not make sense by itself.

The dragon's nostrils billowed smoke as if it was real.

Watch our Explain Everything which we recorded as we created our sentences.

Dragon Sentences from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.

Music: When by Stephen Siebert (Creative Commons)

Wildebeest Writing

Yesterday we used this animated video as a writing prompt.

We discussed ideas about the structure of the story.

There was a lot of direct speech coming through in our writing, so we had a mini-lesson on punctuating direct speech.

The students' writing is very entertaining so far. Many have chosen to completely change the characters. Look out for their presented writing on the student blogs (links on the right).

Building Exciting Sentences

The other day we were writing about our caving experience. We have built up our signs of success for moment in time writing. These are to make it exciting to read. For example beginning in the action, short sharp sentences, strong verbs, using the senses and showing personality. As the students typed their first sentences into their Google document, some of them read them aloud into the Explain Everything app on the iPad. We listened back to the sentences and chose our favourite words. Check it out!



Caving Sentences from Kieren Moriarty on Vimeo.

I Infer...

Today, we discussed the reading strategy of inferring or making inferences. It means reading between the lines to wok out hidden meanings in the text. You need to combine good thinking with clues in the text and your own prior knowledge. We had a go making inferences from descriptive sentences using Padlet. I think the students did very well! Here are our first two examples.

Created with Padlet

Created with Padlet

Correct Punctuation?

Today our literacy starter was about punctuation. How did we do?

http://literacystarter.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/punctuation/
Copy the sentence below, adding the correct punctuation.


“What did you say?” the teacher asked in astonishment. “How dare you say that in my room, go to the head teacher’s office now!” Fred left the class without saying another word.

Olympic Torch

The Olympic torch sure is special. One of our writing choices is to imagine you are chosen to carry the Olympic flame! Describe your feelings as you run... ...carrying the Olympic torch.

Today we tried a quick Draw - Label - Caption plan to develop ideas, details and sequencing for our writing. We will use these to create effective sentences which are grouped into paragraphs.

Check out these examples from year fives in our class:

Rhys

Sam

Zeb

Alexandra

Bianca

Daniel

Kharn

We are learning to form correct sentences

This poster helps us to form correct sentences. We developed it yesterday to improve our sentence formation and it seems be working!

What do you think?