ICT and literacy

We started,  on our journeys over the last few days by listening to a poetry cd,  and talking about the devices used to make a poem work well.  We noticed,  repetition of words and phrases; alliteration ; rhythm and rhyming.  We also noticed that the poems sometimes use similes to illustrate and give greater meaning.  One particular poem which uses this a lot starts off,  last night I saw the city breathing. The poem which has caught Autumn's imagination the most was "boogie buggy baby".  It has great rhythm,  and fun images pop into your head.  

After lunch Evan and I put together the words we came up with whilst at the river last week. We decided to use similes to bring it to life a bit more.  I modelled a lot of the process as it was his first experience of poetry writing.  He joined in with phrases and similes which were lovely.

After our trip out last week I wrote out the words we came up with on pieces of paper in the style of the word wherever possible.  Today we arranged the words in an order that felt about right.  Evan and I added to the words and phrases by expanding some of them to be similes   We left the onomatopoeic words and phrases on their own.

Here it is:

The Source of the Porter Brook

Fresh, still, cool air

Earthy leaves

Dripping from the moors like a snotty nose

Tributaries feeding it like you feed a baby

Rocks making the it go fast

Bubbling like spit bubbles around its mouth

mountains of foam and

a gurgling drain

A shower, bouncing off rocks lilke a ball bouncing on the ground

Water rushing like its late for an appointment

Bending this way and that

Wiggly and windy like a crazy dance

Getting bigger and smaller

Wider and thinner

Deeper and shallower

Pond-like yet flowing

Splayshy Splash

Whooshy Whoosh

Gushy Gush Gush

Double Gush

Lingered - Don

(the Porter Brook has its source near Ringinglow Village and follows a route down into Sheffield where it meets the River Sheaf and then the River Don - the last line is a pun about this initiated by Autumn)

After this Evan was eager to search for some of the Octonaut items he would like for Christmas.  I suggested he make a Christmas list, so I helped him, using Publisher, to put together a list using photos clipped from the internet.  He then set to work writing what they all were.  He had to be quite specific with the wording, as there are a lot of different types of things, and he didn't want duplicates.  He learned 

How to save a picture into a file from the internet

• How to make a text box
• How to highlight text
• How to increase font size
• How to change font
• Developed a greater awareness of letter placement on the keyboard.

Our literacy goals he achieved  today were:

• develop a greater understanding of poetry
• Understanding and use of devices for making poetry more interesting
• Spelling words, and using phonemes in context.