Back to school - remotely!

Hello, ESOL children, parents and caregivers,

I hope that it will be easy to find some support and help for your children through this blog. I have created this blog to help them with their learning of English. They can email me their work and I can publish it here as well.

Please, don't feel pressured into anything. We want to go through this lockdown feeling well and safe. My blog is all about suggestions and supporting you and your children at home. There are different tasks and resources for different age groups and language abilities. Let me know, if you have questions, suggestions or concerns: d.goodall@ghs.school.nz

Year 5 and 6

How to Write an Explanation Text 

Please, listen to me first:

In the next days I will show you here on my blog how to write an explanation text.

So just follow my instructions. First we need to collect information. 

When you write an explanation, you want to INFORM or TEACH your audience by answering why or how questions. It's a non-fictional text. That means you don't make it up - remember!?

Let's write an explanation text that answers the question, Why did the Prime Minister of New Zealand declare that the Easter Bunny is an essential worker?.

Read the texts and listen to the video of Jacinda Ardern. Just click on the links:

Link 1

What is covid 19 and why are there new rules for our daily life?

Link 2

Jacinda Ardern Easter Bunny Speech

Now answer my questions in writing:

1) What is Covid 19?
2) Why did New Zealand go into lockdown? How is the lockdown going to stop the virus?
3) What is an essential worker and why did the government decide that some people are essential workers?
4) Why did Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, declare the Easter Bunny an essential worker in one of her press conferences.

Answer the questions - write down your answers!
If you want to, you can email the answers to me and I will publish them on the blog.

Next week we will look at how to use a burger planner to plan for our explanation text.

Thank you to all the students that tried to answer the questions. Check out what Yuliya, Janelle, Eduan and Joao were thinking:

Good day Ms Goodall,

Please see my answers regarding your blog

1) Covid-19 is the name given by the infectious disease by the most recently discovered coronavirus.

2) Covid-19 was spreading fast around the country.The lockdown will break chain of transmission and it will save lives.

3) Essentail workers,and those that support them,will continue to provide the necessities of live for evryone in NZ during alert level 4. This means food,medicine,healthcare,energy,fuel,wasted-removal,internet and financial support will continue to be available.

4) The Easter Bunny is an essential worker because it is lock down so we are living in a bubble with limited space and activities.Me as a child love Easter egg hunts and we all sould have fun on Easter. I believe the Easter Bunny is an essentail worker because its somthing to look forword to and be exited about during this lockdown. The  Easter Bunny won't be able to deliver Easter eggs evrywere because he has a family of his own and needs to provide for them.

Thank you

Janelle

Why did the Prime Minister of New Zealand declare that the Easter Bunny is an essential worker?.

1) What is Covid 19?

COVID 19 is one of millions of coronaviruses, they call them coronaviruses because they look like a crown under a powerful microscope(Corona is crown in Latin language)

2) Why did New Zealand go into lockdown? How is the lockdown going to stop the virus?

So the virus won’t spread, it can’t infect anyone outside the “bubble” (inside an imaginary circle of 1.5 metters in radius).

3) What is an essential worker and why did the government decide that some people are essential workers?An essential worker is someone very important that needs to work so we can survive (ex:doctor, police officer, shop workers…).

4) Why did Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, declare the Easter Bunny an essential worker in one of her press conferences. Because the Easter bunny won’t go in all the houses, so maybe the children can make their own egg hunt.

By Joao

1) What is Covid 19? This is a the infectious disease caused by the most recently discovered coronavirus. 

2) Why did New Zealand go into lockdown? How is the lockdown going to stop the virus? The reason why New Zealand went into lockdown was for kiwis not to get infected with the disease. The lockdown will break the spreading of the virus, as people stay at home and have the social distancing outside.

3) What is an essential worker and why did the government decide that some people are essential workers? Essential workers have really important roles in relation to the community’s needs. The essential services include food supply, power, fuel, waste-removal, health-care and others.

4) Why did Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, declare the Easter Bunny an essential worker in one of her press conferences. The Easter Bunny was declared an essential worker because in my opinion children love the Easter Bunny and having something from him really gives hope for the future.

                                                             by Yuliya 

1.What is a virus?

Viruses are like microscopically tiny predators equipped to invade the cells of living things to use them as hosts so the virus can multiply.They  can multiply without a host.
There are countless types of viruses and most are harmless to humans.Some cause mild illnesses and some are deadly.

2.What are coronaviruses?

These are a big family of viruses that can cause illnesses in animals,including in humans.
They are called coronaviruses because they look like a krown under a power fill microscope.Corona is krown in lanten language.
The common cold is a type of coronavirus.
The most recently discovered coronavirus causes Covid-19.

3.What is Covid-19?

Covid-19 is the same given to infectious disease caused by the most recently discovered coronaviruses.This new virus and disease was unknown before the outbreak began in Wuhan,China,December 2019.

 By Eduan

Year 3 and 4 ALL BY YOURSELF, 

Year 2 with help :)

Hey, That's My Monster!

First listen to Mrs Goodall:

Please, click on the link:

Hey, That's My Monster! 

Over to you, read my descriptions and tell me which monster am I describing?

Monster A
This monster is tubby and small, It has green hair and wears it in two cute pig tails. It has big orange eyes with pretty eye lashes. This monster has two pointy, sharp teeth and a little horn on its nose. It has pink, sharp claws and a lot of fury, green hair that covers its arms.

It is called .......?

Monster B
This monster's body looks like the tail of a very fat rattle snake. Its body is bright yellow and covered in pink spots. It has a mane of pink and purple hair like a lion and two curly horns or tentacles on its head. It has a big mouth with pointy teeth.

It is called ......?

Did you find the answer? Check out what Vika was thinking:

Now I would like you to write a description of the first, very slimy monster, called Agatha.

If you are in year 3 or 4, you can do this all by yourself. 

If you are in year 2, you can give this a go. Maybe somebody in your bubble can help you. But it's okay, if you just draw a nice picture of Agatha. Can you label it? 

For the writers: 

These words might be helpful:

slime, oozed, tentacles, ball shaped, body, noses

Write a text that tells me what Agatha looks like and email it to me (if you like :)). I will publish our texts on the blog. d.goodall@ghs.school.nz If you have drawn a picture of Agatha, email it, too!!

I really like Vika and Elli and Almeer's descriptions - can you send me more of those, please?

Lawrence and Julian have drawn Agatha and labelled the picture, too:

  

Year 1 and 2 learners that are new to reading and writing English

Please, click on the links below. (My apologies. They don't look like links.)

Phonics Song

Songs to help us read

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Online Games to learn vocabulary about food

You can have lots of fun around food words at home, too. The children can make a menu for the whole day: Breakfast, lunch and dinner. They can draw the food and drink and record the letters that they can hear. That means you say, "What sounds can you hear in the word 'apple'?" Your child might hear,"aaa"! You say, "Great, what else can you hear?" Your child might say "l". "Nice, write it down". It's okay, if we just have 'a l' on the piece of paper to represent apple.

Let them write their own shopping list - remember, it's fine if they only record the letters that they can hear.

Have a teddy bear picnic in the garden. Practise speaking in full sentences, "Would you like a cup of tea, teddy? Would you like a slice of cake? Would you like an apple?" "May I have a cup of tea?"

I am sure that the teachers have  given you plenty of ideas to practise sight words with your child. You could play a treasure hunt game in the living room to find those words that your child is learning at the moment.


Just for fun:

The Rainbow Fish

Can you draw or paint Rainbow Fish? Please, send your picture to me as an email and I will publish it on the blog. Maybe you can even write a sentence about the story? That would be so awesome!! 

Watch this space! ESOL home learning to come after the holidays :)