Term 2 English Emily Corelli

Inquiry questions

How do we know we belong in H01?

What makes us feel as though we belong?
What makes you special and different to everybody else?
How does an environment effect your identity?

Themes Environments, New environments, friendship, safety, belonging

Rationale We live in an ever-changing society full of many diverse cultures, as participants in this
context learners must be accepting of and exposed to a range of different cultural
backgrounds. Through engaging with a high quality literary text, children are able to make
meaning of their surroundings.

General General Capabilities:

Capabilities and  Literacy
Cross-curriculum  Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Capability
priorities  Critical and Creative Thinking
 Personal and Social Capability
 Ethical Understanding
 Intercultural Understanding

Cross-curriculum priorities:
 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Culture
 Sustainability

The range of literary texts for Foundation to Year 10 comprises Australian literature,
including the oral narrative traditions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, as
well as the contemporary literature (ACARA 2015).

Literary texts that support and extend Foundation students as beginner readers include
decodable and predictable texts that range from caption books to books with one or more
sentences per page. These texts involve straightforward sequences of events and
everyday happenings with recognisable, realistic or imaginary characters (ACARA 2015).

Australian Language -
Curriculum English
FIELD - Expressing and developing ideas (ACELA1477)
Recognise that texts are made up of words and groups of words that make meaning

Elaborations
 Exploring spoken, written and multimodal texts and identifying elements, for
example words and images

FIELD - Expressing and developing ideas (ACELA1475)

Explore the different contribution of words and images to make meaning in stories and
informative texts

Elaborations
 Talking about how a ‘different’ story is told if we read only the words, or only the
pictures; and the story that words and pictures make when combined
Term 2 English Emily Corelli

 Exploring how the combination of print and images in texts creates meaning

TENOR - Language for interaction ACELA1476

Explore how language is used differently at home and school depending on the
relationships between people

Elaborations
 Learning that language varies according to the relationships between people, for
example between parent and child, teacher and student, siblings, friends,
shopkeepers and customers
 Learning that we use a different tone and style of language with different people (

TENOR - Language for interaction ACELA1476

Understand that language can be used to explore ways of expressing needs, likes and
dislikes

Elaborations
 Recognising some of the ways emotions and feelings can be conveyed and
influenced by visual representations, for example in advertising and animations

MODE - Text structure and organisation ACELA1482

Understand that some language in written texts is unlike everyday spoken language

Elaborations
 Learning that written text in Standard Australian English has conventions about
words, spaces between words, layout on the page and consistent spelling
because it has to communicate when the speaker/writer is not.
Literature -

Share feelings and thoughts about the events and characters in texts

Retell familiar literary texts through the use of illustrations and images

Identify some features of texts including events and characters and retell events from a
text (

Literacy -

Use comprehension strategies to understand and discuss texts listened to, viewed or
read independently

Listen to and respond orally to texts and to the communication of others in informal and
structured classroom situations

Create short texts to explore, record and report ideas and events using familiar words
and beginning writing knowledge

Focus on new vocabulary and building comprehension of new words.

 Term 2 English Emily Corelli

Text production My Two Blankets by Irene Kobald & Freya Blackwood

Lesson Phases Prior knowledge activity

(formative assessment)
What makes me, me? Patchwork Blanket

Phase 1: Environments

Lesson 1 -
Introduce text through interactive read-aloud to students.
allow time for turn and talk throughout the read aloud

Prompting questions:
 Predict what you think this text might be about
 Does this text remind you of something that has happened to you?
 How did this text make you feel?
 What might happen next?
 How do you feel about the pictures in the book? (reference pages)
 Does this character remind you of anybody that you know?
 What do you think the characters and thinking and feeling?
 What do you think the next picture will look like?
 Why do you think the main character is called Cartwheel?
 Why do you think her aunty stopped calling her Cartwheel?

Mini Lesson - If you could ask the people in the picture a question, what would it be?
Interactive writing - The group decide on a question and construct a letter to the author.

Lesson 2 -
Class discussion about what is an environment and what does it mean? Teacher guides
children through the interactive smartboard, matching objects to their environment.
Discussion of home environments and how it is personal to them.

Lesson 3 - Cartwheel’s home vs our home

(formative assessment)

Revisit the text, with reference to Cartwheel’s first home environment (page 1)
Ask: What do you notice about cartwheels home environment?
Does cartwheel look happy within her home environment?
Discuss thoughts with a partner (turn and talk)

Students are asked to analyse cartwheels home environment

What differences can we see between our home and cartwheels home?
If someone wrote a book about your home environment how would it look?

This lesson allows students to draw a page in their ‘own book’ to make connections
between their home environment.

New Environments – starting school.

Lesson 1- Starting the school year

Term 2 English Emily Corelli

Ask children when beginning the school year, describe how you felt in one word. Create a
word bank with their thoughts. (Refer back to in later learning)

Reread the text up to page 6, making reference to the metaphor ‘When I went out, it was
like standing under a waterfall of strange sounds. The waterfall was cold. It made me feel
alone. I felt like i wasn’t me anymore’.
Text to self connection with feeling out of place in new environment.

Collaborative activity (Writing workshop) - Create a three column table comparing

Cartwheel’s new start vs starting the school year, noting any similarities between the two.

Phase 2: Friendship
this phase links to the following:
4 resources model of meaning making of sociocultural integration

Lesson 1 -
(formative assessment)
Revisit stage in book where cartwheel meets a new friend - ‘One day a girl in the park
smiled at me. Then she waved. I wanted to smile back but I was scared. I kept walking
with auntie. When I looked back, the girl waved again’.

Class discussion about making new friends.

Children engage in individual writing, finishing the following sentences:

When I have a friend it makes me feel...
I’m a good friend when I...
Things I do with my friends are…

Author’s chair – students have the opportunity to share their responses with their
classmates.

Lesson 2 -
Little girl makes cartwheel different symbols to help her feel safe, and communicate.
These symbols were a token of friendship and helped cartwheel to feel comfortable.

Excursion to the Warriparinga Wetlands – Children visit and learn about the cultural
weaving. Before we go we would discuss how different cultures have different ways of
showing friendships and ways of welcoming people to their culture. A visit to Warriparinga
would give students the opportunity to hear and see how an Indigenous Australian culture
shared their friendships and welcomed others.

Children return to the classroom and create their own friendship weaves, to be displayed
around the classroom. (Cross-curricula and Indigenous perspectives link).

Lesson 3 -
(formative assessment)
Revisit page 22 Cartwheel and Little girl under umbrella.
‘Imagine you are the author of this book. Describe what is happening in this picture’.
(Make 26 photocopies without sentences)

Phase 3: Safety
Term 2 English Emily Corelli

Lesson 1 - Independent Construction

(Summative)
Children are asked to bring in an item that helps them to feel safe and secure in their
environment.

Children draw and colour a picture of their safety item.

Children take their drawing home and answer the following questions in their writing
books with assistance from their family.

Why is this important to me?

Where did I get it?
Where do I keep it?

Lesson 2 -
Students create their own text.
Children use their answers to create a piece of writing to add to their drawing. The class
collaboratively designs the class book, which will contain their work.

Phase 4: Belonging

Lesson 1 - How did we know cartwheel felt that she belonged in her environment?
(Making friendships and feeling safe themes helped her to belong)
Brainstorm a word bank based on words that express belonging.

Lesson 2 - Joint Construction Writing Workshop

(Double Lesson)
How to write a piece of expressive writing.
Teacher model’s using an example and provides sentence starters.

Sentence starters:
 I am me because…
 In reception blue I am...
 I feel safe in reception blue because…
 I feel i belong in reception blue when...

Lesson 3 - Independent Writing

(Summative assessment)
Children write a personally expressive piece of writing about themselves individually and
within the environment.

Lesson 4 - Creative task

(Summative task) (Double lesson)
Teacher shares their own ‘what makes me, me patch’ with the class.
Students revisit their piece of expressive writing as a guide for creating their ‘what makes
me, me patch’.

Children create a new patch using paper squares.

The teacher combine’s the prior knowledge task patches with the new patches to create a
joint blanket.
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Lesson 5 - What makes Cartwheel, Cartwheel?

Children create a new patch that represents Cartwheel’s identity.
The teacher refers to the different quilts in the book as an example, highlighting the
symbols she used.

These images will form Cartwheel’s new blanket. The two blankets are presented during
Reception blue’s assembly. The blankets are then displayed in the classroom.

Reading and  Writing workshop

writing workshop  Daily Read-aloud
overview e.g. daily  Modelled reading
reading and writing  Modelled writing
 Interactive read alouds
 Independent writing.

independent  Text production

overview  Reading and daily writing
e.g. individual  Homework
reading procedures
and conferences