Swoop Week

A “swoop” is a descriptive writing activity where students respond to an image.

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Every student must write at least five sentences that describe what is happening in the image. 

The goals for the students are to:

  • Use different types of sentences
  • Identify the types of sentence they have written
  • Identify the subject, and the verb that are in their sentences

Mrs Spargue gave her class an example of a swoop as an activity for writing.  This shared writing task showed  how to use different sentence types in the writing process. It encouraged students to identify the subjects and the verbs in each sentence.

Room 3 students' swoops and reflections.

Over the week of writing this way progress was made.

I was most proud of my swoop about the hangi because I used different types of sentences. In my first swoop all of my sentences were simple.

Making sure we had the correct punctuation in our sentences was challenging, especially getting the commas in the right places.

I enjoy writing swoops because you don’t have to write too much but you do have to think a lot.

The adverb start is my favorite kind of sentence because you start with how the subject is feeling.

I managed to include two preposition start sentences in my swoop about the football stadium.

I got to choose my own picture to swoop about.

Visual prompts were used to show different types of sentences that could be used  in our writing.  These examples also show students how to include the correct punctuation. Punctuation is a goal for the whole class to work on and it is good to reinforce how to use it correctly as often as possible.


2024 Sprague

Sara Sprague

I have been teaching since 2004. I started teaching at Wairakei Primary School in 2011. I am married to Steve and we have two children – Myles and Amelia. Myles and Amelia both enjoyed their primary school years here at Wairakei Primary School. I am really proud to be part of this school and appreciate all the amazing opportunities that are given to our children.

I like working with children and teaching. I love the fun that can be had and the feeling of being a part of a child’s growth and development. My favourite subject is maths. I appreciate the patterns and connections that can be found in numbers and I enjoy problem-solving. I have trained as a Math Specialist Teacher (MST).

My family and I love living in the Taupō area. When I’m not teaching I enjoy spending time with my family, walking my dog and mountain biking - which is a particular family passion.

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