Book talk continues in MI

Today we recapped the text we read yesterday, thinking about the health care in Egyptian times compared to now. We remembered some of the reasons why Egyptians visited a doctor and how the care of the rich compared to the poor. We are really enjoying our new text as it has lots of humour in it! Next we looked at some of the new vocabulary that would appear as we read. We discussed word class along with definitions of each word. We text marked this vocabulary when we started reading. When reading, we took part in an echo read where we tried hard to use an expressive voice along with better fluency. We tried to stay at a pace that was similar to Mrs McClare. We discussed some of the language as we read and offered our thoughts and opinions on parts of the text. Some of which made us laugh! Mrs McClare questioned us on different things as we read. We then took part in a partner read, again offering some critique to our partner. Mrs McClare then read part of the text, modelling fluency and expression. She tried hard to ensure her voice changed when bold words appeared in the text. We enjoyed our reasons to read where we used the text to support our answers. Our exit ticket was looking at statements comparing treatments from today to Egyptian times. A productive session today MI 🙂

Book talk in MI

Today we were introduced to our new text, “so you think you’ve got it bad? A kids guide to life in Ancient Egypt.” First of all we took part in a silent conversation where we explored the front cover of the text. We then moved onto the blurb, reading it with our partner and discussing our ideas. We then moved onto looking at the features of non fiction, playing some fastest finger first games and voicing the sections we would like to read about based on the contents page. We then used read around the robin to explore the glossary and discussed some of the language with our mini crew and whole crew. We then took part in a partner 1 and partner 2 read where we read the first section of the text. We gave our partner critique after reading for a minute then swapped our role. We then took part in an independent read before listening to Mrs McClare read the text back to us. We explored our reasons to read, using the text to find the answers and adding our own opinions and thoughts. Our exit ticket looked at true and false statements which consolidated our learning.

Year 2 Non-Chronological Report


Today we began our lesson by thinking about the school day. In pairs we ordered the events that happen in a typical school day such as reading, writing and maths. The children then added in important things like bagels and story time that Mrs Robson had forgotten about!

Afterwards we thought more carefully about the purpose of crew and what happens during our crew sessions as this will be the first section of our report.

Chocolate cake poem – book talk

In our reading lessons this week, we have continued to work on our inference skill but our text was a poem. We really enjoyed reading this poem, focusing on our fluency and pausing at punctuation. We read to our partners, played control the game, read independently and read to an adult. We also worked in pairs to answer our reasons to read.

Poetry – Book Talk

Over the last two weeks, Crew Hamill has focused on poetry for their reading lessons. We have looked at two poems that are linked to our expedition learning – Chocolate Cake by Michael Rosen and the Augustus Gloop song from Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. We have done a lot of discussion on what a poem is and identified the different features. We have then had a heavy focus on inference, really testing our skills of pulling information out of a text and using clues within it to answer questions about thoughts and feelings. We have then worked in pairs to answer inference questions about the characters. We cannot wait to apply these skills to our demonstration comprehension questions and written comprehension next week.

Book talk in MI

Our entry ticket allowed us to develop our inference skills around a picture which certainly raised lots of questions and discussions. We then worked on our words per minute by reading our text again! We really tried to ensure we were being fluent but also taking in what we were reading. We then took part in an echo read, read around the robin and an independent read where we recapped the text and some of the language in it. From here we looked at our reasons to read before acting out parts of the poem! Our exit ticket assessed our understanding of the stanzas in the poem! A great reading lesson MI 🙂

Book Talk – Poetry

This week, Crew Hamill have started something new in reading – poetry! We have looked at the famous poem by Michael Rosen: I love chocolate cake. We have started with an extract of this poem that details his love of chocolate cake as a result of having chocolate cake for tea as a little boy. He talks about a time he had chocolate cake for tea and then crept downstairs for leftovers without wanting to be caught by his mum and dad. We can’t wait to read the next extract to see if he gets away with it or not! We began by text marking the poem, highlighting key vocabulary, interesting parts and things we loved or thought were important. After this, we used our inference and retrieval skills to answer a number of questions about what had happened in the extract. We have also had several opportunities to read aloud, focusing on pausing and pace. Today, we also watched Michael Rosen himself re-telling his poem and made notices about his expression, both in his voice and in his face. We then used this to perform part of the poems ourself!

Crew Marsh has talent!

In today’s experience lesson we practised our different talents ready for our Crew Marsh talent show. We discussed how a good audience should sit with good sitting, listening ears and magnet eyes on the stage. We started our talent show with Noah introducing the show, then we had a group of animals telling us funny jokes. We then watched a dance. After that, we had hula hoopers and bean bag skills. Finally, Noah closed the talent show thanking everyone for coming. I was very impressed with all the talent we saw!