These included the description, location and dynamics. A description is what the animal looks like or has. A location is where the animal lives or can be which country they can be found. The dynamics describe what the animal can do and can include any additional information we know.
Room 12 has been learning a lot about what good writers do. Using a good writers checklist and visual checkers, first in our modelling book then in each student’s writing book, we have become more confident at talking about what we are learning to do, as well as what our next steps will be to become expert writers.
To provide motivation for their writing we looked at a really cool blog about one of the students from Wairakei Primary hands-on kiwi experience.
The children wrote wonderings and formed questions they would like to find out about kiwis and tuatara’s.
I wonder why tuatara are scared of predators? I wonder why tuatara lose their tails? I wonder why tuatara shed their skin? I wonder why tuatara have spikes on their backs? I wonder how tuatara in the forest find their food? (Scarlett)
I wonder if tuatara’s eat fruit? I wonder what the tuatara’s enemies are? (Finlay)
I wonder if kiwis sleep in a dirt house? I wonder how big a kiwi egg is? (Richard)
I wonder if tuatara swim in the water? (Eli)
Next, we learnt how to label the parts of our kiwi/tuatara’s body. We used these to describe what our animal looked like. We discovered that using adjectives make our writing more interesting for the reader.
A kiwis beak has nostrils on the end of it. The kiwis eyes are blue and the kiwi has tiny wings. (Lyla)
The tuatara has prickly spikes and a long, swinging tail. Tuatara are cool because my Nana likes green. They can camouflage their skin, also their eyes can change colour. (Paige)
The location asked us to describe the habitat and where in the world we would find our animal living in the wild.
My kiwi lives in the ground of the tree. He only lives in New Zealand and it also lives in the forest. The kiwi can live in the leaves. It likes it very much because she can play and jump in puddles and in the leaves. (Bianca)
My kiwi lives in New Zealand. Kiwis like to use crispy leaves to build beds. Kiwis live under trees. (Keani)
The tuatara lives under rocks and in the bush. (Julian)
The tuatara lives in the green bush and they live with sea birds. Tuatara find food on dusty trees and they find bugs under rocks. (Danielle)
Dynamics, are the final part of the information report and allow us to describe what the kiwi/tuatara do. We researched what our kiwi and tuatara ate.
Kiwis eat worms, insects, fruit and they have big nostrils at the bottom of their beak. They can sniff for yummy things to eat in the forest. (Scarlett)
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Keywords: English, Science, Natives, Tuatara, Kiwi, Habitat, Description, Dynamics
