Y4 East 2018
Welcome to the 2018-19 Reading Gladiators challenges. Let the reading begin!
There are schools in this group:
- Just Imagine
- The Grove Primary School
- The Round House Primary Academy
- St George’s C of E Primary School, Colchester
- Holy Trinity C of E Primary School, Halstead
- Richard de Clare Community School
- Ivy Chimneys Primary School
- Burnham on Crouch Primary School
- Wentworth Primary School
- Woodham Walter Primary School
- Great Easton Primary School
- Felsted Primary School
- Stock C of E Primary School
- Brightside Primary School
- Woodville Primary School
- Danbury Park Community Primary School
- Wormley C of E Primary School
- Dallow Primary School
- Toftwood Infant and Junior School Federation
- St Mary’s Prittlewell C of E Primary School
- Giffards Primary School
- Pakefield Primary School
- The Albert Pye Community Primary School
- Kessingland C of E Primary Academy
- Arthur Bugler Primary School
- Tudor C of E Primary School
- Chappel C of E Primary School
- Roselands Primary, Hoddesdon
- Saint Andrews C of E Halstead
- Long Melford Church of England Primary School
- Parsloes Primary
- Watton-at-Stone Primary & Nursery School
- Furneux Pelham C of E School
- Foxdell Federation (Infants and Juniors)
- Eyke CofE VCP School
Updates
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Ox Cart Man
We were intrigued to discover that Ox Cart Man is a real poem! We tried blackout technique to create a new poem from it; this was one of my favourites!
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Reading Gladiator Challenge Day!
Well done to the children who attended the recent Reading Gladiator Challenge day. Many thanks to Miss Ainscough and Wentworth Primary School for making us feel welcome. We all had a great time sharing our knowledge about the books read.
Comments
4th Jul 2019, 10:42am
Fantastic. Thank you for sharing with each other and with us! -
Submission by Giffards Primary School
Giffards Primary School The Song from Somewhere Else
Having heard all of the musical pieces, the children selected, 'Haunting and Heartbreaking' by A. Badalamenti. It reminded them of events in the cellar - the darkness, the portal, the music and the stick creatures. Children worked in pairs to create their artwork opting to use pastels and charcoal to set the tone. One pair used bursts of colour for half of the drawing since it reminded them of the colour being sucked away from the world (as in the story).
Comments
14th Jun 2019, 3:02pm Excellent work here Gladiators. Your use of charcoal as a medium, use of colour and annotations make this a great mini-challenge entry. Well done. -
A Song from Somewhere Else
So many questions and ideas, from the initial illustration and then the first few pages! Safe to say, we are hooked!
Comments
9th May 2019, 11:09amI wonder if any of their ideas will come to fruition? Our Gladiators are also hooked, they have all finished reading the book already and found what occurs very peculiar!13th May 2019, 7:24pm Thank you for no spoilers Lucy! This title is certainly provoking a lot of strong reactions, which of course is exactly what we want from our gladiators! -
The Song From Somewhere Else – Our First Encounter…
Our Year 4 Gladiators are really intrigued as to what is install for the girl riding her bike in the illustration. They linked the dark, menacing clouds to her possibly having a downbeat mood and they guessed that she could be running away from her home.
Comments
7th May 2019, 11:51am
What perceptive observations Kessingland. The illustrations are certainly very atmospheric aren't they? -
More Sky Song Freeze Frames
Comments
29th Mar 2019, 11:41am You've really launched yourselves into this! Great work Woodham Walter. -
Sky Freeze frames frames
You know when you are working with really creative children when your freeze frame activity also includes adverts and out-takes!
Comments
29th Mar 2019, 11:40am Love the facial expressions! We can see you've really got into role. -
The Ice Garden
We were so excited to win The Ice Garden mini challenge last month. Thank you for the fabulous prize!
Comments
29th Mar 2019, 11:39am Well done! I think the whole team agreed that your entry was excellent and it's great to see you with your prizes. Happy reading :) -
Sky Song
We have started reading our new book. We had some great discussions and enjoyed talking about where the book was set and how there are several links in the story to the Arctic. We had read some chapters and home and then drew the map in the session to enhance our understanding of the plot, setting and characters. We are looking forward to finding out what happens now Eska has escaped from the Ice Queen.
Comments
15th Mar 2019, 10:53am Drawing maps is a great way of keeping track in a story. Well done Round House - I wonder if you've read any other books where a map would help.18th Mar 2019, 12:45pm
We made maps too... we based them on the one at the front of the book but I am now realising that we are going to have to add some extra locations! Ahem, *waterfall* -
Introduction to Sky Song
We started Sky Song this week. We started off making notes based on the front cover then we read the blurb and the prologue and added to our notes. We all agreed it’s going to be a great book.
Comments
15th Mar 2019, 10:51am What a great start you've made! We love Sky Song so much and look forward to hearing your thoughts as you read on. -
Mapping a story
We are finding Sky Song an intense read .. so much happens it can be hard to follow. This week we made maps of Erkenwald and plotted the adventure so far. I even made a map myself, and it was lovely chatting about the story as we worked. We also had a few guesses about what might happen on the Devil’s Dancefloor!
Comments
14th Mar 2019, 10:30am What great maps Burnham. It's a great way of keeping track of events. -
Poetry Performance
Year 4 selected some poems they thought that Year 3 would enjoy. They put a lot of thought into their choices and their performance. Mrs Terry’s class thoroughly enjoyed the performance and thought all the readings were excellent!
Comments
28th Feb 2019, 2:19pm
A great idea to think about the year 3 readers. I wonder if there are any in the collection that you think year 5 would enjoy? -
Submission by St George’s C of E Primary School, Colchester
St George’s mini challenge
Comments
15th Feb 2019, 2:24pm Some thoughtful choices here St George's and beautifully presented.14th Mar 2019, 11:39am How beautiful! -
Submission by Kessingland C of E Primary Academy
Poetry Magic found at Kessingland CofE Primary Academy
Our Year 4 Reading Gladiators have had so much fun reading and performing the poetry of Brain Moses.
For their anthology they each produced a poster of their favourite poem (see cover image), explaining why they have chosen that particular lyrical masterpiece as their favourite. The group chose Shopping Trolley as their overall favourite and they were keen to share their performance of it for you all to enjoy (hope the video works 🤞).
Comments
12th Feb 2019, 1:09pm Thank you for for recording your favourite poem Kessingland Gladiators. It looks like you really enjoyed Brian's poems. -
Submission by The Grove Primary School
The Grove Primary School – Lost Magic Submission
We chose a few of the poems because we thought they were fun to read and made us laugh. The School Goalie’s Reasons, Aliens Stole My Underpants and Behind the Staffroom Door were poems that made us laugh. We really enjoyed reading The School Goalie’s Reasons aloud and even made a short performance to go alongside it. We thought that the excuses were a mixture of being either ridiculous or feeble and that if people made those excuses whilst playing football with us, we wouldn’t believe them.
Aliens Stole My Underpants reminded us of a picture book we had read in Key Stage 1. We liked reading the imaginative and inventive predictions about what they thought the aliens would use the underpants for. This poem was definitely more appealing to the boys in our group than the girls.
We enjoyed reading Behind the Staffroom Door because it reminded us of the song ‘Ten Green Bottles’ and we could sing some of the poem to that tune, which made it interesting to perform. We also thought that younger children would enjoy this poem as they may be able to sing it too. Additionally, it made us question what actually happens in the staffroom in our own school. We could imagine some of our teachers doing some of those things in the poem.
Day Closure is also a poem about school. We enjoyed this because it was fun to imagine our teachers sitting at desks during the school day, whilst we get the day off. We thought it would be really funny if they were being taught by the children as a complete role reversal.
The next few poems we chose were all about animals such as Return to Ssssnake Hotel, Walking with my Iguana and Taking out the Tigers. We liked how Return to the Ssssnake Hotel is a sequel to another poem in the same collection. We chose this because we enjoyed discussing the contrast between a hotel usually being a place to visit if you want to relax and this hotel being dangerous. We questioned how you could relax in a dangerous hotel. It changed our opinions of what hotels could be like.
Taking out the Tigers drew our attention to the fact that it is based on a real story. We looked up the zoo on the Isle of Wight where this story was based and found out that people really did take the tigers on walks along the beach. We were amazed that this was actually a true story and this generated a lot of questioning and discussion around this.
Walking with my Iguana was another fun poem to read aloud. One of us read the poem whilst the others formed a chorus and read the words in brackets. We thought that this was fun to perform and know that children of all ages would enjoy hearing this poem. We also wondered whether they was a link to the game ‘Chinese Whispers’ as the animals that the character is walking with change. We wondered if someone had seen the person walking with an iguana and when they told people, the story got changed to a piranha or a Chihuahua or a gorilla.
Finally, we chose Dad Remote Control because we thought it was mad. We thought that a dad remote control would be a useful thing for us to have but also for our mums, to make sure that our dads are doing the right thing. We thought that the poem was clever by taking the subject of parents and made it funny, but also sort of realistic. We also thought that it made dads sounds like they are robots, which could be true because they behave strangely sometimes.
We grouped our poems into unusual pairs. This was because we looked at the contents page from ‘Lost Magic’ and thought that some of the groups seemed a bit mad and random, so we wanted to pair together poems that were different but could still make some links between them. The group names are in the photograph. -
The Sssnake Hotel
We are loving the poetry anthology for this month at Round House. We are already getting a collection of favourites. Today we really enjoyed listening to Brian Moses perform the poem and then having a go at creating our own performance of the Return to the Sssnake Hotel. We realised that performing the poem in a certain way by changing the pace, pitch and adding pauses can make it so much more interesting.
Comments
26th Jan 2019, 1:06am Redaing poems aloud can help us understand them better. You can hear the rhyme, the rhythm and the pace. We are really pleased to hear that yu are enjoying the poems.31st Jan 2019, 12:11pm We are going to do this next week. I am glad to hear you had such success! -
The Town is by the Sea
After listening to the sounds of the workers in the coal mines, the children created mood boards to reflect how they might feel in a coal mine.
Comments
21st Jan 2019, 8:21pm What a great mood board. It's interesting that some of the lines are sharp and jagged and other marks are like black smudges and look gloomy and depressing. -
Submission by St Mary’s Prittlewell C of E Primary School
Darkness
The Year 4 Reading Gladiators at St. Mary's Prittlewell enjoyed using charcoal to explore the theme of darkness. They created word banks linked to darkness and used these in their work. One gladiator even used the words as the basis of her piece which, as you can see, was very effective!
Comments
11th Jan 2019, 10:28am The perfect medium to complete this task! and some super vocabulary on your word board.11th Jan 2019, 11:53amwhat a fantastic idea and very powerful words -
Submission by Toftwood Infant and Junior School Federation
The Town Is By the Sea
We created a map of how we felt being blindfolded and submerged into darkness, On our piece, we used black media to write words and draw pictures of how it felt.
Comments
11th Jan 2019, 10:21am A very practical way to approach the task! I love the mixed responses and use of modern acronyms. Actually probably highly applicable in the circumstances!11th Jan 2019, 11:52amwow! how affective! it made me feel quite claustrophobic ! -
Submission by Wormley C of E Primary School
Wormley Wimbley Woos
Three of our reading gladiators try their hand at some Wimbley woo poetry!
Comments
14th Dec 2018, 3:01pm Well done you three! I hope you have read your verses aloud to the rest of your group. -
Submission by The Grove Primary School
The Grove Primary School – Wed Wabbit Submission
The Reading Gladiators at The Grove had a great time coming up with their verses. They found it really challenging to make the lines rhyme but once they got into the swing of things they didn't want to stop. We used rhyming dictionaries to help us find rhyming words and also took ideas from the text. We are looking forward to reading other poems by Reading Gladiator teams too!
Comments
14th Dec 2018, 2:47pm I'm sure other gladiators will enjoy reading your verse as much as you will looking at theirs. A great effort Grove Gladiators -
Submission by Kessingland C of E Primary Academy
Our Poem about wed wabbit
Having really enjoyed this book from beginning to end
as a group we discussed this fantastic fantasy tale
and summarised the events for you to comprehend
we hope you enjoy our work and give top marks on a one to ten scale!Comments
14th Dec 2018, 2:39pm Well clearly a 10! Very clever incorporation of the colours in your Wimbley poem. -
Submission by Burnham on Crouch Primary School
Wed Wabbit poem
Wed Wabbit poem
Minnie was hit by a car
Fidge had to go to her ar…nt
And ended up going quite farCousin Graham is a nightmare
And he always gets a scare
Life for him isn’t fairDown the stairs the toys are hurled
And she enters another world
The static made her hair curlThe Greys are stuck on a train
They are a bit of a pain
They all ask again and againAll of the Wimbleys are sad
The Blues have gone really mad
Something is making them badThe colours are going away
Wed Wabbit is making them pay
Please help us with no delay
All Wimbleys have to obeyThe races and games save the land
The colours start to expand
Finally Fidge understands
And holds Wed Wabbit’s handsGraham and Fidge can go home
Minnie’s no longer alone
That is the end of our poem.By Kaelen Tobi Fletcher Madison Chloe Sid Jaya Lucianne
Comments
14th Dec 2018, 2:15pm I think my favourite line has to be 'The static made her hair curl'! Well done to all of you. I hope you have read this aloud in your group or to your class? -
Submission by The Albert Pye Community Primary School
Wimbley Prose
We had such a great time recounting the story of Wed Wabbit in a different way, it was a lovely way to relive favourite parts of the book! The Reading Gladiators did a great job in small groups of summarising major plot points, ordering them and transferring them into prose. The challenges came in thinking about keeping a steady rhythm, which we’d identified in the Wimbley Woos’ speech, and maintaining this without loosing sense of the plot. We’re incredibly pleased with the end result!
Comments
10th Dec 2018, 12:19pm Thank you for sharing the children's original group work and also submitting the typed version as a downloadable file. Your selections really capture the essence of the plot. Some great work here Albert Pye. -
Submission by Giffards Primary School
Giffards Primary school Wed Wabbit Summary
We discussed the story and made bullet points of the key events. The children then worked in groups/pairs and took a few bullet points each to write a verse for the summary. They used a mixture of rhyming patterns and styles. The children really enjoyed making nonsense words to complete rhymes!
Comments
10th Dec 2018, 12:04pm It looks like you had great fun writing this - it certainly made us laugh! We love the way you have picked up on the King's diction and the use of half rhyme. You have summed up the story really well. -
Our reading journey
Our display board is beginning to fill up! It’s a great way to let the rest of the school know what we are reading. Thank you, Miss Smith, for creating it for us.
Comments
7th Dec 2018, 1:09pm Lovely to see your display unfolding as you read. This maintains interest, whilst allowing the Gladiators to share the stories they have read with the rest of the school. Thank you for sharing it with us. -
Looking at what’s inside (the) Fidge!
Our reading Gladiators are absolutely loving Web Wabbit and this week we discussed how Fidge is feeling now she finds herself in the weird and wonderful world of the Wimbley Woos.
Comments
3rd Dec 2018, 10:43am Some thoughtful insights here Kessingland Gladiators.14th Jan 2019, 4:29pm I love your notes on how other people see her. Great idea!! My group were really anti Fidge and thought she was unkind. Did any of your Gladiators have a similar response? I was surprised by it! -
An Immersive Experience
We used the blackout goggles to experience complete darkness. We then listened to mining sounds and discussed how we felt.
Comments
28th Nov 2018, 9:32am It is rare to experience complete darkness isn't it? I think I would feel rather nervous. The blackout goggles are a super idea. How did you feel?6th Dec 2018, 10:23am You may like to play the song Once We Were Kings from the Billy Elliot musical - some great lyrics that really resonate with the themes of this story: "So we walk proudly And we walk strong All together We will go as one The ground is empty And cold as hell But we all go together when we go" -
School Assembly
The reading gladiators carried out an assembly to the whole school. They recommended books and read an extract from each of the two books – Angelino Brown and Wed Wabbit. They are loving their new responsibilities.
Comments
27th Nov 2018, 1:44pm Great to see you being such fantastic reading ambassadors Watton Gladiators. Lovely to see a school I used to teach at taking part in Reading Gladiators too :) -
Wimbley verses!
We’ve had fun channelling our inner Wimbley Woos this week, here’s the children’s draft verses for the mini challenge. A great opportunity to think of rhyming patterns and syllable counts, whilst reliving favourite parts of the story!
Comments
23rd Nov 2018, 1:00am Have you started thinking in verse yet? Imagine talking like that ALL the time. Which Wimbley would you most like to meet? and which would you least like to meet?
Comments