During the last few weeks of term, the children of Amazon Class have loved exploring the gorgeous story of The Cloud Tea Monkeys by Mal Peet. 

'The Cloud Tea Monkeys' is the story of Tashi who lives in a tiny village below the tea plantations where her mother earns a living. One day her mother falls ill, and Tashi must pick tea to earn the money for a doctor. But she is too small to reach the tender shoots and the cruel Overseer sends her away empty-handed. Tashi needs a miracle. Then, on the mountains high above the plantation where only monkeys live, something extraordinary happens that will change her life for ever.

The children were inspired by the stunning description used by the author to create a picture in the reader's mind and decided to capture this in their diary writing. The children wrote their diaries as if they were the child in the story. 

As part of our writing last week, the children took part in tea tasting as a first hand experience to describe the tea in their writing. There were lots of mixed reactions to tasting tea and the different flavours! Here are some of the children's thoughts below:

Green tea

"It's tingly on my tongue!" 

"It tastes like fresh leaves." 

"It does not taste good!"

Decaffeinated tea

"It tastes fresh but sour."

"It tastes like tea!"

"It tastes quite bland."

Vanilla tea

"It tastes sweet." 

"It tastes just like biscuits!"

Lemon and Ginger tea

"It tastes sour and bitter." 

"This one is my favourite because I love lemon."

"I don't like the ginger very much."

"This tastes like my mum's stir fry!"

Mint tea

"It tastes strong and like an explosion in my mouth."

"This one tastes like my toothpaste."

"It tastes like oregano."

"My tongue feels strange."

 

We were really impressed with the thoughtful description used by the children in their diary writing.

 

Tuesday 8th December:

This week we have explored our new book ‘The Squirrels Who Squabbled’ and met Spontaneous Cyril and Plan Ahead Bruce who chased and squabbled over the very last pine cone of the season. We started by predicting what we thought the story might be about, using the clues on the front cover and discussing the meaning of the word, squabbled. We used sentence stems to talk clearly in full sentences and shared our ideas by ‘inviting in’ our friends to share their thoughts too.

After sharing the story, we worked in groups to discuss and debate the question- Who do you think should have got the last pine cone of the season? It was rather tricky to come to a final decision as some of us thought that Cyril should have the pine cone as his stores were empty and Bruce had lots of food and was simply being greedy. However, some of us thought that Cyril had been irresponsible as he partied his way through the year and Bruce should have the pine cone because he was not careless and planned ahead. Many of us thought that sharing the pine cone would be a fair solution for both squirrels.

We gave reasons to support our views and this was also a great opportunity to practise our listening skills which we explored last week. Our spokesperson had the job of summarising what their group had discussed and the agreement they reached.  

We then watched a video of our discussions and used this to make our own Class Talk Rules. We have decided that we have quite a few things to work on so that we can learn how to become super speakers and active listeners! We understand why it is so important to learn how to use talk effectively.

Wednesday 9th December

As we prepare for writing poetry based on our new book, we worked in talk trios to explore the different sounds made by a pine cone on its journey around our playground and woodland area. We talked about the best words to describe the noises it makes and how it moves when it hits different surfaces such as the ground, a tree, grass and stone. We also explored how the pine cone moves when it is thrown up into the air, for example; the pine cone soars, falls and drops. Finally, we discussed verbs for how the pine cone moves on the water. As we talked, we used full sentences and we built on each other’s ideas. We will now use our chosen words within our poetry.

Some of our fantastic verbs and onomatopoeia words:

drifts     soared      scuttled     raced     rattled     boinged    bounced               floats    submerged     quivered      teetered     pinged    plopped    balanced     binged      flew    rolled    slid      fell     dropped   cascaded   

Look out for our poetry based on this book next week.

This term we have been exploring our wonderful book, Black Dog by Levi Pinfold. This is the heartwarming story of the Hope family who one day, are visited by a black dog. The dog gets bigger and bigger as the Hope family become more and more afraid. 

Only Small, the youngest of the Hope family, has the courage to face the black dog. When it chases her through the snowy forest she shows no fear, so it grows smaller and smaller. 

We've talked about Black Dog symbolising fear and our worries growing bigger but what then happens when we face our fears, just like Small Hope did.

Why not talk to your child about this story and the parts they have enjoyed? They may even tell you about the new character they have designed!

We are very excited to start innovating this story by adding our own characters. Look out for our stories next week; 'Grey Squirrel', 'Ginger Cat', 'Green Lizard', 'Brown Hamster' and more!

10/12/20- Please find your child's story uploaded to their Seesaw journal. Enjoy!