THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS

The Setting of The Wind in the Willows is the English countryside.  The book is all about the delightful adventures of four animal friends: Rat, Mole, Badger and the crazy Mr Toad of Toad Hall who live beside a river overhung by willow trees.  Even though they dress and speak like humans, they also display their unique animal characteristics.  The story tells of the struggle between the noisy inhabitants of the river – the stoats and the weasels and quieter, more cultured animals on the river bank- badger, mole, rat and toad.

When Mole goes boating with the Water Rat, after losing his home, he discovers a world he never knew about.  As well as the river and the Wild Wood, there is Toad’s craze for fast travel which leads him and his friends in a whirl of trains, gypsy caravans and motor cars into a lot of trouble and even a battle with the menacing pack of weasels who threaten the peaceful lifestyle and the very existence of life on the riverbank.

Characters:

Mole: mild mannered

Water Rat (or Ratty): loves the river

Otter: friend of Ratty

Portly: son of Otter

Badger: powerful yet solitary

Toad: mischievous estate owner

The Magistrate

The Court Clerk

The Gaoler

The Gaoler’s Daughter

The Engine Driver

The Barge Woman

The Gypsy

The Chief Weasel.

 When you research I want you to pay particular attention to how the movie has evolved over the years. When and how did it start? Was it a cartoon or based on real characters.  Find out as much as you can and then look at The Wind and the Willows worksheet up the top left hand corner to see what to do next.

Rosey

Well another term and come to an end and pretty soon we will be going into year 8, as for those of you who are not aware all year levels go up to the next year level in the last 3 weeks of term 4, we call this process Flying Start.

Each of the students was sent home on Friday with their portfolio, please take the time to go through this with your child and feel free to make comments and send them back. We need all the portfolio’s back by the end of next semester as their new year 8 teachers will want to look at them.

On another note you will see that we have not done too much work on the blogs these last few weeks. We have been playing with a new site called Voice Thread and you may see your childs work on this by using this link: 
http://voicethread.com/#u141056.b180565.i961587

I think they have done a great job as first timers using this site and have done some good work on The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe on it.

Have a great break and I look forward to our last term together for 2008.

Scotty

When you have completed your entire assignment on Ancient Civilizations and are ready to present your oral you may begin work on a movie to do with any topic of your choice on Ancient Civilizations, even selecting to look at another country if your choose to. To get to this point you will be really extending yourself, so well done.

You may like to make a movie on a certain person like Hercules or on an Ancient town, a particular gladiator battle or look at Hannibal….the choice is yours. You may do a voice over like we have learnt with Sartz or simply do written pages. You may if you want to also do Photo Shop instead of Movie Maker.

Remember though extend yourself and do your best, and have fun…

Scotty

Well we are drawing to an end to Ancient Civilizations and you have two tasks left to do.

1). If you are studying Ancient China you are research in full Terracotta Soldiers

    If you are studying Ancient Greece you are to research in full any mythological creature of your choice.

You must know all about which area you are studying and have a good picture of one. In art you are going to make a clay model of your chosen area and by the end of the semester be able to bring your clay model to General Studies and give a talk on the history of your subject.

2) Last but not least you are going to tie in your intructional writing skills with your knowledge on Ancient Civilizations. You are to select an area of your Civilization and write a ‘How to” procedure on it, for example, how to tie a toga, how to plough up a field, how to write on a scroll. This will be another oral presentation to the class due on Friday the 5th of September.

Lots to get through these next few weeks guys, so lets get to it…

Scotty.

Today we are going to look at letter writing…        

I want you to write a letter to your parents telling them about everything you did last week, so if you went on camp it will be a letter all about that, if you stayed here tell your parents what you got up to.

A letter always has your address up the top (so make up a fake one) and begins with Dear…

You are to have at least three paragraphs in your letter, you may have them on: what was good, what was bad, what you enjoyed the most, what the food/accomodation was like, the games you played, the people you met and what you may do next time. Use your imagination as each paragraph is to contain no less than 6 full sentences.

Lastly do not forget to sign off: love, from, with regards, sincerely are some of the variations used to sign off on a letter.

You are to do your letter on a PAGE and title it  A Letter.

Can’t wait to see what you write and don’t forget to tell Mum and Dad to check it and reply.

Scotty

                  Well Beechworth awaits and so far you know that Ned Kelly was sent to court there and………………well what else?

Your task today is very simple you are to research Beechworth come up with 5 interesting things about the area that you did not already know (prize for the first person who can tell me what is so unusal about the town clock).

You are to write a page titiled Beechworth and write an introduction about Beechworth and then in 5 full sentences list down the facts you have learnt. It will be interesting to see if you see or experience any of the information you find out. As always I want a piccy!

Scotty.

Friday..as promised fun day with chocolate and Sartz! (quick show of hands which is better: Sartz or chocolate?).

Today as said yesterday we are creating a movie and a podcast. The movie we are making will look like the one below that Mr Tennant created for 7A:

 ben-hall_00011

We have a busy day so you need to listen carefully, be patient and PUT YOUR HAND up when stuck..

Scotty….                                              

We have been looking at Ned Kelly and now it is time for you to extend your research skills and find an Australian bushranger that interests you. Try this site:

http://scs.une.edu.au/bushrangers/biog.htm

Once you have picked one, put a folder in your H drive titled Bushrangers and find as many pictures as you can to put in the folder. Also find out as much information as you can on your bushranger and put that on a document to use as well.

Next stay tuned to what we are doing with all this information on Friday…..with Sartz…yay…

Scotty

Welcome back, no doubt you are very excited to be back at school, I know I am happy to see you. Not long until camp now and for all of you keen to know where we are going here is the website for our accomodation: http://www.mountainviewretreat.com.au/index.html, have a look at it and make sure you let your parents know it is on here as well as I am sure they are keen to see where you will be staying.