Crook Primary School
Crook Primary School
We had a surprise visit from an in-house author this week! Noah Wilkinson has embarked upon the creation of his very own futuristic adventure novel, set around the exciting life of Zortom. 'Zortom and the Invasion of the Globas' is sure to be the next big bestseller book series - and 6O can't wait to find out what is going to happen next! Will Zortom discover more about the prophecy? What happened to his father? We hope we will find out soon.. well done Noah Wilkinson.
If you are looking for ideas for suitable story books for your child, why not have a look at the suggested list for their year group. There are many great titles, some you will have heard of (and possibly read as a child!) and others that might be new to you. It is a great place to start when choosing new books - we want all children to love reading and to read for pleasure. Let us know if you have any other recommendations too - we are always happy to hear about exciting books!
Click the link below for your child's year group...
We have been enjoying 'Goodnight Mr Tom' by Michelle Magorian in Year 6. It is a wonderful book that follows the story of William, and young and bewildered evacuee, and a gruff old man with a good heart, Mr Tom.
In Year 2, we have been learning about the monarchy and we have linked our story in English to this. Our story - The Queen's Hat - takes us on a whirlwind tour of London as The Queen chases her hat thanks to a strong gust of wind! She chases it through, over and around some of London's most well known landmarks! We have loved retelling the story using time conjunctions and we can't wait to write a character description about one of The Queen's Guards!
In Year 4, we have just finished reading Escape from Pompeii by Christina Balit. During our English lessons, the children have been focusing on different reading skills and using the class text to practise and demonstrate their understanding of these skills.
We used reading skills to make predictions about our class text, retrieve information from the text and to show an understanding of vocabulary.
We finished our English cycle by writing a setting description about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii.
Year 1's author focus for the autumn term is Julia Donaldson. We will be making our way through Julia's vast selection of books as we progress through the term. We absolutely love the rhymes within these stories and we have been fantastic at recalling our favourite characters. Can you remember the title of any Julia Donaldson books?
Year 3 were very shocked to see Missing Posters in the corridors and classroom! We made predictions about the missing pony and discussed what might have happened to him. To discover if our predictions were correct, we read the story Polonius the Pit Pony. It then became clear that Polonius had escaped from working in a coal mine. Over our three week cycle we had lots of fun freeze framing scenes from the story, hot seating characters, editing a letter from Polonius to help him use punctuation and capital letters. To end the cycle we wrote letters to Brian to tell him about Polonius's adventures while had had been free!
Over the past few weeks, both Year 6 classes have been working with Miss Golightly to learn the story of Macbeth by William Shakespeare.
Enjoy these pictures of 6T getting involved by showcasing their dramatic ability.
Our new author to focus on is an exciting author named Drew Daywalt. Drew Daywalt is an American author who has worked with Oliver Jeffers. We did some research on Drew Daywalt and created a display for our reading corner.
We absolutely loved Daywalt's book called 'The Day the Crayons Quit'! So much so that we decided to use it in English for a piece of independent writing. It was so clear how much the children enjoyed the story as their writing knocked our socks off!
Our summer term author spotlight in Year 5 is on Helen Cresswell. We researched the author and created a display in our reading area.
We are reading Moondial. Here is a plot summary from yakbooks.com
'Minty Cane believes she is a witch - not that you would notice to look at her - it's just that she is quite used to seeing phantoms floating about the place, and thinks it is perfectly normal. She's a pretty determined sort of person as well, which is just as well because when she goes to stay with her aunt in the village of Belton she soon senses that she has a task to do.
She finds herself drawn by some deep and secret force to the sundial in the grounds of old Belton House which she immediately knows, by instinct, is also a moondial. Now, really, there is no such thing as a moondial for telling the time with because the moon, unlike the sun, does not always follow the same path through the skies. But a sundial cannot work during dark moonlight hours, so the ordinary rules of time don't apply when the sundial is working as a moondial. That's how this time travel story works.
As she approaches the moondial, the effect is dramatic. With a whistling of the winds of time she is transported back a hundred years to meet Tom, a mistreated kitchen boy who dreams of growing up to be a footman. At first, they each believe the other to be a ghost but they have to conclude that they are travellers in time - for Tom is equally capable of using the moondial to pass into the twentieth century to find Minty.
What is the point of this ability to pass through time? Tom and Minty discover that they have both independently travelled further back in time to meet a stricken child who only comes out to play at night because her face is spoilt by a strawberry birth mark. Her life is unbearable because everyone believes her to belong to the devil. Minty and Tom resolve to help her.
If you want to know how they achieve it, you will have to read the book for yourself, but I can tell you it isn't as straightforward a solution as you might think. I'm not even sure if you will think it's a happy ending, but the children seem pleased enough.
As usual with Helen Cresswell there is plenty to work out for yourself after you have read this story. There is one character who mystifies me. Who is Miss Raven? Well, yes, I know she is a ghostbuster lurking round the grounds of Belton House for her own purposes. But is she also a time traveller, the evil Miss Vole?'
