The Story Behind the Tweet

Not all our ideas are our own. Here's another we found on Twitter:

@alanpeat @waitrose real story, but so many ways you could use this #constrainedwriting pic.twitter.com/OItoy8Z0Xn

— nina (@ninalouise213) 30 May 2016

Nina posted the above Tweet and we immediately loved the idea. It's taken a few weeks to find the opportunity to try it out, but now we have and it worked quite well. It certainly engaged a group of Year Fives who just about know how Twitter works and certainly hear about and see Tweets in various media they see.

Here's what we did:

Firstly, I considered looking for an intriguing Tweet (which I may do in the future), but I didn't and instead created my own, fictional Tweet, using lemmetweetthatforyou:

I read the class the original example from Waitrose in Nina's Tweet and then showed them the fictional Tweet. I informed them that it was fictional and I even went to the bother of checking that the @Mentions don't currently exist on the site. 

Challenge 1: explain what the Tweet's about. Challenge 2: write in a similar style to Waitrose. Challenge 3: explain it in exactly 140 words. 

We completed our writing in the Count Words & Characters app and then posted the finished stories to a Padlet wall. 

We've written in the past about other forms of restrained writing: Two Sentence Stories, Stories in a Tweet, 100WC and others...

Musical Notation and Fractions

While planning a unit of work about fractions recently, a colleague (musical one) suggested using musical notation as a way of introducing fractions.

Four beats in a bar: this can be achieved in many many ways! 

A bit of a reminder / teaching about musical notation and off we went...

And then, the children had a go themselves:

The resources were all made using Printable Paper.

Lessons That Resource Themselves(ish)

On 9th June 2016, Liam was invited to present at Animate2Educate's Talk on the Tyne event. Below is a copy of his presentation:

Martin ran two stunning events over 9th and 10th June. If you've not yet taken a look at what he can offer, we strongly suggest you do: www.animate2educate.co.uk

Cliffhangers

At some recent training with Dylan Wiliam, he asked us a question just before a coffee break and before lunch. He told us we'd get the answer after the break - you know, like Eastenders. So, I've been doing it. Pose a question just before break or lunch that'll be answered at the start of the next lesson. Some of the children actually go away and think about it. Of course, it's very easily done with a book that's being read to the class too...

Lynne Truss' Books for Punctuation

I can remember when 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation' was first published. I was at university at the time and a house mate purchased it as a gift for his mother. I had a flick through and found some of the contents of interest. A few years later, and now teaching, I came across the 'child version' of the book. So, I made a purchase and often us the three child-friendly versions of the original in class. Although aimed at children, these books often act as an aide-mémoire for me too!

We've recently been looking at how commas can change the meaning of a sentence. 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves For Children: Why, Commas Really Do Make a Difference' is ideal for introducing this. After looking at the examples in the book and some of what's in the other two books pictured above, we had a go at writing some of our own:

Click here to see some more of our examples.

The Piano - Some Resources

Another post prompted by a Tweet. We recently saw the below Tweet and our answer was of course, "Yes", but knew our full response wouldn't possibly fit in a Tweet, so here's the blog post answer...

Between us, we've taught the English module based upon 'The Piano' since it was added to the English curriculum. Every year we've been amazed by the writing it produces. 

We've not written about our work with 'The Piano' before as we were a little unsure about its copyright status. However, in October 2015 Aidan Gibbons, who made the short, told us "it's a free for all".

So, here's what we've got to share...

- First of all, just listen to the sound track. What do the children think the film might be like? 

- Watch the film through and collect responses via a Google Form.  

- Carry out a film review: 

Created with Padlet

- On a tablet, take screen captures and make memes that can be used when writing about the film.

- We edited the original animation. Does the order of the scenes change the narrative?

- We've played the film with a Yakety Sax soundtrack and a Ludovico Einaudi soundtrack instead of the original, as well as playing it with the sound off to show how much the sound track impacts. We can't share those here as we don't have copyright permission for the music.

- Some of the above resources and others can be also found here.

- If you write a voiceover, use some technology to put it onto the original film:

That's Not My Homophone

We've got about fifteen of these books in our house. My daughter loves them. The images and tactile features of each page are great for engaging a toddler with reading.

What I've realised is that just about every page of the book covers 'that's', 'its' and 'too'. So, today I took in one of her books and projected it for the class to read. The vast majority of them recognised the book. We read it and discussed 'that's', 'its' and 'too' as we came to each one. My main teaching point was 'too'. I told the class to think of these books every time they write 'too' or 'its/it's'.