A GLIMPSE INTO ENGLISH

Gold Fever!

CM1 Antarctica poetry

The CM2 have been learning all about the Gold Rush in Australia. Not only are they learning the history of gold, the methods used to find it and its value, they are also learning about the cultural implications for the country with the arrival of so many immigrants. A read-a-loud of the story “The Goldseekers” is helping them understand the perspective of Chinese diggers. This narrative has been complemented by news-paper articles from the 1800’s describing the Lambing Flats riots.

Students were asked to write letters home as if they were on the goldfields. They were allowed to choose the view-point of any person, Euro-pean, Chinese, child or adult. These letters were then stained to give an aged im-pression. Here is the work from Karen and Adriane’s classes.

CM1 Have been studying Antarctica this term. Along with reading the novel “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” they are also researching the animals

and the environment. Here are some acrostic

poems created by Allison’s year 4

Antarctica is an icy conti-

nent

No vegetation, nearly no

animals either.

The continent is the biggest

in the world

And it isn’t only ice, under

the ice there is land

Rocks and rivers, frozen

plants and mud all under the

ice

Can we live there? No

The scientists do lots of

experiments there

It belongs to different

counties

Can be under 50 degrees.

Antarctica is a desert and

contains 90% of the world’s

ice.

By Solange Courtial

Antarctica is unsurvivable Not many people live there Temperatures can kill Apparently Bear Grylles went there Rather be warmer Can be a freezing wasteland There are a lot of penguins It is always freezing Cold water And catches scientist’s atten-tion. By Eric Porter

Antarctica is the biggest

desert in the world

Never hot

The penguins are cute

Avalanches may happen

Really beautiful

Coldest place on earth

There are no polar bears

Icy place

Can be communication prob-

lems

Always snowy and white.

By Aron Galambos

The International French School of Sydney

Inside this issue:

CM2: Letters from the Goldfields

1

CM1: Antarctica 1

GS: Dinosaurs CM2: poetry

2

CP: Insects poems CE2: Narratives

2

CE1: Narratives GS: Where the Wild Things Are

3

CM1: Poetry 3

CE1: Poetry CM2: brochures

4

CP: songs and stories

4

Block 5:

Year 1 HSIE Topic: “Minibeasts”

Year 2 HSIE Topic: “Pets” amd “Fairy Tales”

Year 3 HSIE Topic: “State and National Parks”

Year 4 HSIE Topic: “Deserts”

Year 5 HSIE Topic: “Gold and Minerals”

April 11th

Volume 1, Issue 5

The Wind

Once upon a time, in a little village, I was on a ladder and I was painting. There was lots of wind so I fell down and something magical happened.

I fell on a trampoline and I jumped so high that I fell in a pool. I was FURIOUS! I went to see what that was all about then I realised that I was in the ocean and I could breathe underwater.

It was very good until I was swim-ming near a reef and saw a shark with big teeth. I was very scared. He nearly ate me but lots of baby dol-phins with brown eyes save my by hitting the shark. It was really nice of them so I fed them. Then I de-cided to live in the water.

By Suzanne Feller

Nicky’s CM2 Poems

Page 2 A Glimpse Into English

Students in Adriane’s class were given the challenge of writing a story including one of the following three words: drop, wind, keep.

Here are some of the pieces that were created.

Drop in the Sharks

One day there was a lifesaver club. They went on their boat because someone was in the middle of the sea. One hour later, they were in front of the person. He was waving his arm to say “help”. That was in the sea. Then they saw shadows circling the person.

Then one of the lifesavers threw meat in the water. Then the other one wanted to grab the meat but he fell down because the other one pushed him.

Then the man that was in the water grabbed

the meat and threw it in the boat. Then the sharks jumped and ate the lifesaver.

By Lilian Dufour

Student’s in Nicky’s class have been exploring the use of poetry to describe colours. Here are a few poems on black, gold and darkness.

Black

Black is Batman

Black is dark chocolate

Black is a spider

Black sounds like a person

dying

Black sounds like a yawn

Black sounds boring

Black feels sad

Black feels dizzy

Black feels lost

The sweet taste of blackberries

The bitter taste of dark choco-

late

The savoury taste of olives

Black

By Hamilton Thurman

I live in a hive, I am black and yellow

Nectar is what I eat

Sometimes I am annoying

Every time I buzz

Cute little insects

Turn nectar into honey.

Adelaide Roger

I live in a cocoon

Not on a leaf

So long to wait

Eventually, I pop out

Creatures all around me

Then I am a butterfly.

Caleb Jones

GOLD

Gold makes you feel greedy

It’s like a ring

It sounds like trumpets

It feels like you are rich

It tastes like the golden crust

Gold makes you feel special

Gold makes you feel greedy

It’s like a gold material

It sounds like Egyptian songs

It feels like fairy dust

It tastes like maple syrup

Gold makes you feel special

Gold makes you feel greedy

It’s like jewellery

It sounds like bangles jan-gling

It tastes like nicely baked cookies

Gold makes you feel special

By Manon Lohier

CP Poetry

CE2 Narratives

The darkness!

One scary night, With sounds of whisper-ings in the darkness, I saw with my lamp, A spider, A bat in the sky, A wheel rolling around, And little black ants. Then I heard someone coming quietly towards me With his yellow eyes in the darkness, I was really scared, But it was just a black cat. I feel like I am buried. And I am! By Prisca Fontana-Giusti

GS Stegosaurus! The GS have been learning all about Dino-saurs this block. They’ve looked at the mighty T-Rex, the pterodactyl, and have created this beautiful artwork on the stego-saurus. They made sure to include the right number of legs, the long neck, spiky tail (for pro-tection) and the plates along the back.

CE1 Narratives

Where the Wild Things Are in GS

said, “Yes!”. Off they went. Lit-

tle Jack saw lots of animals. His

mum told him it was his birth-

day. The mum invited all his

friends and she made a cake. “I

love you mum.” “I love you too,”

said mum. Then he opened his

presents.

By Josephine Steele

The Forest Ride

Once upon a time there was a

grandmother that wanted a bi-

cycle.

One day she went for a walk in

the forest. Then she found a

bicycle. “Oh goody,” said the

grandmother.

Then she went for a ride in the

forest. “AAAAAAAAAAH! I saw

a wolf,” she said. She ran out of

the forest and pushed the door

of her house and said, “Phew.

Safe and Sound.”

By Raphaël Ledru

The complexity of the narratives in CE1 has been growing. In Prue’s class they are adding chapters. In Adriane’s class they’ve begun adding speech.

Here are a few excerpts.

The Lost pet

Chapter 1:

One day for breakfast,

Levi was eating his bacon

and egg roll. Afterwards he

got ready for school and

out on his uniform and

jumped in the car.

When Levi got there he sat

down and he did his work.

Afterwards it was time for

his parents to come. His

mum picked him up from

school and they went back

home.

When they arrived Levi

went to his tree house and

he started to do his home-

work. After a while he heard

a noise, he heard it again so

he climbed down the tree

and he didn’t find anything.

He looked on the street and

found a puppy. He offered

some meat to the puppy and

it nibbled on it then barked.

Levi let the baby dog inside.

Levi checked if it had a col-

lar but it didn’t. Levi felt

bad for him so he let the

dog stay for the night. Then

at night he ran away.

To be continued...

By Leo Neal

Little Jack

One day little Jack asked

his mum, “Mum can you take

me to the farm?” His mum

GS read "Where the Wild Things Are"

and had to think of their own punish-

ment for Max when he told his mum, "

I'll eat you up!"

Here’s what some of them came up

with!

I think the mum should have sent Max

to the Wild Things! Matteo

I would send Max to his room. Louise

I think Max should go to bed. Clara

Max should go to bed. Violette

Max should go to bed straight away

without supper and without TV. Hesper

Max should go to the naughty step.

Remy

He should go back to where the Wild

Things are. Loic

I would send him to his room. Amelie

No dessert or TV for Max. Kilua

Max should go to another house. Nelson

I think the Mum should put Max out-

side the door. Rose

He should go to bed. Etienne J

Page 3 Volume 1, Issue 5

Acrostic poems are a nice way to ease into the com-plexity of poetry. Prue’s students have begun study-ing poetry in this manner. Here is one from her class.

Right under the sun

Across the clouds

I saw a rainbow

Near the houses

Behind the moun-tains

Over the swamp

Was a wish box

By Samuel Higelin

CM1 Poetry

I think Max shouldn’t have no dinner,

no club and no TV. Adel

Max can’t play with his friends for 1

day. Etienne G

I think the Mum should say “no more

supper for 5 days!” Fedy

I think Max needs to go to bed. Maya

I think the Mum should send him to

time out ! Celeste

I think Max should go to bed! Sophie

I think Max stop talking like that.

Chiara

I think his Mum should say : “ I’ll eat

you up ! “ Noa

I think Max should go to bed right

now! Charly

I would say:” leave the house!” Ume

I think his Mum should say : “Go to

bed !” Raphael

I would punish him for 100 years!

Jesse

Max, go to your room! Come back

when you are calm. Colette

I wouldn’t give Max any dinner! Liam

I think Max should go to bed. Joakim

I think Max should stay in bed for 10

days! Charlie

Max, go to bed! Alexandre

There will be no breakfast, lunch or

dinner for 10 day ! Hugo

I think the Mum should say to Max:”

“Stay in your room!” Noemie

CM2 Brochures CM2 students have finished up projects on the rainfor-est, and after weeks of research and hard work in the classroom they made some informative (and very enter-taining) movies, as well as beautiful brochures. Nicky and Adriane’s classes voted on their favourites and the winner was Imogen Cosby, with Jethro Philipps as a runner up and Lillian Luhrmann rounding off the top 3.

Lucy Marin-Curtoud received an honourable mention as did Ria Utz. Well done everyone!

CP Songs and stories As part of the unit on Minibeasts, the CP have been reading classic stories and learning age old songs. Through Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar, students from Adriane’s class learned how much food a caterpillar needs to eat, and students from Leah and Karen’s class used created artwork to show what happens once the caterpillar has transformed.

Page 4

Students in Allison and Adriane’s class also read and sang the classic story “There was an old lady

who swallowed a fly”, with Allison’s class exploring the Aussie version “There was an old lady who swallowed a mozzie”.

Our favourite lines?

“Fancy that to swallow a cat!” And “I don’t know how she swallowed that cow”.

Here are some old ladies bursting at the seems with

all they’ve eaten!

Left: informative posters on a range of minibeasts

CE1 Poetry

Allison’s CE1s have put their new grammar knowledge of adjectives to good use in these wonderful poems about dogs:

Dogs dogs dogs

Black dogs

Brown dogs

Cute, small, fluffy dogs

Scary, big, greedy dogs

Those are just a few

Beautiful dogs

Ugly dogs

Loyal, lazy, white dogs

Smooth, shaggy, yappy dogs

Black, big

Short, small

Do not forget fluffy, tall

Last of all spotty, muddy

I like all dogs.

By Julie Defrene

Dogs dogs dogs

Black dogs

Brown dogs

Big, fat, noisy dogs

Spotty, cute, tall dogs

Those are just a few

Jumping dogs

Smelly dogs

Lazy, scary, naughty dogs

Tiny, short, greedy dogs too

Hairy, yappy

Friendly, happy

Do not forget Australian Cattle

dogs

Last of all Gun dogs

I like Bull dogs.

By Leonard Werner

Honourable mentions to Ria (left) and Lucy (right).

Imogen’s colourful brochure and creative poem won her top pick.

Lillian brought our attention to the ad-verse effects of being so reliant on palm

oil (a product which is in nearly every-thing we use!)

Jethro focused on the use of cocoa beans and the culture of native

Amazonian Indians.