Percy Jackson

Unit 9

This week we have been doing some practice SATS papers.
 

We started off reading an extract from the next Percy Jackson paper that included a chariot race. During it we could tell Percy felt under pressure and so as a class we came up with some tips to help us with pressure during the SATS week.

We had a successful day today doing a practice grammar paper and then a spelling paper. We marked it together and discussed any misconceptions. To finish off with some fun we had some chariot racing. 

Unit 8

We discussed that this book is told from the point of view or Percy Jackson. During the last chapter, Mrs Crowther stopped reading at a pinnacle moment, when Percy has been left for dead. Her challenge to us was to rewrite that chapter from Luke’s point of view.

Unit 7

Adverbs of possibility

We began by revising adverbs of possibility and used different mythical items as a stimulus to create an advertisement script. In computing we created a storyboard for our script and spent some English time editing our drafts and ensuring we included adverbs of possibility. Have a listen to our audio below.

We linked to our computing topic 'We are Advertisers' and put our scripts to video to create a real advert. Follow the link below to see them.

Are Medusa and the Minotaur monsters?

We read a poem called Medusa and Minotaur Take Tea by Rachel Piercey and discussed how the language challenged our perception about the monsters from what we already read. We had a great discussion while we highlighted the key words and phrases.

We had a debate and tried to influence Miss Rogers decision, watch the video below to see if she said she felt sorry for the monsters or not.

Active and Passive Voice

We revised active and passive voice and then rewrote different sentences to the other. 

Subordinate Clauses

We revised subordinate clauses and identified them in sentences, added different conjunctions and made sure we punctuated them correctly.

Unit 6

Verb forms

We used the book as a stimulus to revise different verb forms and tested our knowledge.

Summarising

After reading up to the end of chapter 16 we worked collaboratively with Mrs Crowther to create a summary timeline of key events in the chapter. We started to do the same with chapter 17 before continuing in pairs to finish the chapter and create our own.

Unit 5

Bullet points

We spent some time using fictional newspaper articles to identify key features of reports. Once we revised bullet points we wrote our own lists using them correctly showing what we had learnt were the features of reports.

Dialogue punctuation

We read more chapters of the book and took different exerts from the text to identify how and where dialogue is punctuated correctly, adding a reporting clause alongside inverted commas. We then looked at it from the view of a journalist and learnt how to report it ready for writing a newspaper report. We became journalists and eyewitnesses asking each other questions.

Commas, colons and semi colons

We spent some time revising the above and making sure we understood how to use them correctly.

 Newspaper Reports

to finish off our unit we became journalists and wrote a newspaper article all about the incident at The Gateway Arch.

Unit 4

Information texts and reports

During this topic we will be writing our own information texts and reports. To begin with we read different examples and discussed features.

Parenthesis

Today we revised parenthesis and how to punctuate it correctly. We had a go at identifying parenthesis ourselves and wrote character descriptions to ensure we included it and punctuated it correctly with commas, dashes and brackets.

Adverbials

We revised the term adverbials and discussed what they were and how to punctuate them correctly. With the chapter we just read we rewrote it in an explanation form in the view of the driver and included adverbials to add detail.

Unit 3

Apostrophes

To being unit 3, we spent some time revising apostrophes and their different uses.

Instructional Writing

We empathise with the character and realise how hard it must have been to start a new and unfamiliar camp and so we decided to create some ‘How to’ guides for new campers.

Unit 2

Modal verbs

We began this unit we learnt all about modal verbs, using examples from the text we identified modal verbs. 

Expanded noun phrases

We took 4 different mythical creatures and in teams to write expanded noun phrases after we discussed the importance of vivid language in our writing for the reader to visualise.

Relative clauses

It was interesting to learn about the correct use of relative clauses and how to punctuate them correctly. We had a go at writing some of our own sentences about the story.

Subjunctive Form

We learnt about what the subjunctive form is and spent some time identifying whether sentences were written in the subjunctive form and then rewriting sentences to be in this form.

Predictive and descriptive writing

We learnt that each cabin in camp half-blood is patronised by one of the Olympians. We spent some time in groups discussing different ideas for which cabin would suit us best and describe what we thought they'd look like. Once we had gathered our ideas we wrote a predictive and descriptive paragraph about which cabin we would be suited too applying the grammar we had learnt the last week and focusing on giving reasons for our predictions. 

Unit 1

Gods and Goddess

To start our new book we wrote down anything we already knew about Greek mythology. We had a variety of non-fiction books and websites and started as a class to collect information about Zeus. We were then given a different God or Goddess and in pairs or independently started our own research, creating a poster page. Mrs Crowther played Ancient Greek music while we researched.

Follow the link below to see the magazine we created in our computing lessons.

We shared our initial thoughts about the blurb and front cover and from that made some predictions.

Sentence Punctuation

We revised the term sentence and what it actually meant along with sentence punctuation and the term clause. We were given examples of complete and not complete sentence which we had to correctly label and then Mrs Crowther gave us some examples of text that were wrong and we had to edit and correct them.

Informal and a Formal Register

We revised the differences between formal and informal language and in tables took some examples of informal language and discussed how we could change them to more formal examples.

Using a copy of an extract from chapter 1, in pairs we highlighted informal language and recorded more formal examples in our books.

Word Classes

For our lesson today we revised different word classes. We looked at a word grid, of words related to our book, and colour coded them. In pairs we then spent some time using our dictionary skills to create a class dictionary of the words, we had to write the word class and definition.

Informal writing

As a class we wrote an informal letter from Percy to Grover telling him about his exclusion from Yancy Academy.

Formal writing

Using all the skills we had practiced during our class guided writing we applied that independently to our formal writing activity. We had to write in role as the headmaster explaining to Percy's mum why they decided to expel Percy.