Reading

tocThese are some of my reading activities I have done.

Glacier Web Quest
This was a task that my teacher set us for about two weeks. We worked in pairs to write a report about glaciers and to find out the meanings of some glacial words. I really enjoyed this task and hope to do something similar again. This is my report.

As thick sheets of ice glaciers glide down the mountains and hills into valleys below. They stretch their great wings over the land as they move forward and downwards gracefully and purposefully. They are dangerous enemies, they are scientific wonders and they are a thrill to the eyes.
 * Glaciers**

‘Glacier’ is a name that was originally created in the mid 18th century from the french words ‘glace’ and ‘ice’. ‘Glace’ means to have a smooth, glossy surface while ‘ice’ is a word for solid frozen water. These two definitions describe the basics of the glacier very well.

The glaciers journey begins when snow is strong enough to stay in the same place throughout the year. This means it must last through the hot summer without melting. If the snow achieves this first task it will have had time to combine its crystals into one big mass of ice. The mass will not have had time however to join completely so there will be air bubbles throughout it. These must all be filled in before the glacier can be complete.

All through this first stage the wanna-be glacier is moving down the mountain on which it is forming. It slides very slowly so its movements are only visible over months. The glacier slides on small amounts of water that have escaped from the compression and are running down the mountain allowing the glacier to surf smoothly upon it.

As the glacier moves down the mountainside the ice crystals expand filling in the air bubbles that were created by the lack of time the glacier had to form. Some air bubbles still remain throughout the glacier although they would have shrunk.

If the glacier moves to quickly it doesn’t give the ice crystals enough time to compact tidily so there are still large gaps that air is stuck in. Because the ice is heavier than the air the air is meant to rise, but the ice above it is compacted so tightly that it cant escape. This creates enormous pressure and causes the surface of the glacier to crack releasing the air. These cracks are called crevasses.

As glaciers move they abrade the rocks creating valleys or gullys. It pushes all the dirt and rock till the glacier is to weak to push it any further that it is left in a pile and that forms the end of the glacier. At the end of the glacier the water must go somewhere otherwise it can not complete its cycle so it evaporates or sinks into the ground.

Glaciers are amazing natural wonders and they will continue to be studied and awed in years to come.

In Control
Make a character web of a main character in the story.
 * Remembering - What are the facts?**




 * Understanding - Reading Between the lines**

Why did the room suddenly feel hot? I think the room felt hot partly because she was nervous about talking to this lady but mostly because of her dehydration. It says in the text ‘What was that I just said?’ I think this means that her memory is fading use to lack of food and water.

What was one of the reasons for the storytellers condition? Scarlett was as she was mainly because of pressure from her mother. It sound like her mother was anorexic too and kept telling her daughter to lose weight. In the story Scarlett states, ‘Counting daily fat points began to pay off. I was loving the attention I was getting, especially from mum. Finally she was proud of me.’ This proves that her mum wanted her to lose weight and now that Scarlett was skin and bones she was proud of her.

Why does Scarlett feel she has ‘Nothing to say’?


 * Applying - Using what you know from the story**

Write a Newspaper Report about anorexia.

People often worry about what people think of them but what is really more important is what you think of yourself. Anarexia is a condition most common to teenagers. It is a self asteem condition where the person involved thinks they are fat even when they are very skinny. It can start with thinking that you are simply a little overweight so you change your diet. You then begin to eat less and less until a glass of water scares you and your bones are visible.

Dr Brownley, a school counciller, recently spoke to a girl who came to her because of weight issues. The girl, Scarlett, claims to be fat and wants to lose weight desperately. Before seeing her properly Dr Brownley was eager to help but things changed dramaticly when she unzipped her jacket. “When she unzipped her jacket, oviously nervous, and I saw her ribs through her tight T-Shirt I was horrified. She was only 12 and already as skinny as a stick.” Says the doctor. Scarlett, when told she had anarexia was unmoved and refused to talk about her weight to the press staff.

Scarlett is a classic example of a person suffering from anarexia as she refuses to eat and to believe that she is way under weight. It is hard to get an anarexic to eat again and put on weight but the specialists are determined to help Scarlett to recover from her severe disease.

Write a poem about anarexia.

**Look in the mirror...** How could there possibly be, Fatter a person than me? My mum does often say, Just casually throughout the day, Small comments about my weight, That make me feel not great. But then at lunch and tea, She practically shouts at me, Tells me I must eat, But I just sit upon my seat, Thinking about being skinny Oh what a joy it would be, To look in the mirror and see, A beautiful not ugly face, Staring back at me.


 * Analysing - Breaking down the story to show how it works**

Story graph Show how the story teller is feeling throughout the book.




 * Story Web**




 * Creating - Coming Up With New Ideas**

What if... Rewrite the last paragraph as if Scarlett has obesity problems. Scarlett stared sadly into the mirror, looking at her rather large reflection. Her stomach bulged out of her baggy T-shirt she wore to hide the many rolls of fat that sat on her belly. Her backside stuck out the back as if she had put a pillow down her pants. Her face was pink and chubby. Her hair hung lifelessly above her broad rounded shoulders. Her expression was sad, desperate, self consious, angry, helpless and yet blank. She looked at herself and sighed turning away.

Design brief- Design a new invention that helps you stay at your perfect weight for your age and height




 * Evaluating - Exploring Ideas And Rating Stories**

Make a chart to show the whether you agree with the statement or not.

“Dr Brownley was not the right person to talk to the storyteller”



How Good Is This Story?

I thought that this was a great idea for a story and it was written really well. The writing made it seem as if she was actually fat until the last moment, this was great because you really had to re-read it to understand fully. The characters were well done and were easy to picture thanks to good describing words. The setting could have been described more but maybe it didn’t need that much describing as it was more about the people in the story. It was cool how the author put in little statements now and then that really make you think such as the ones about the mum.

=__**Mammals Of The Amazon**__ =

__**Remembering - What are the facts?**__ The fur or hair on a mammals body helps to keep the body warm. This means that the mammals body heat rate can stay the same through all sorts of weather. Mammals need to eat all the time so they have fuel to burn to keep there body gong throughout the day. Some mammals can survive for longer without food than others. How does clearing the Rain Forest land benefit humans? How does it affect the mammals in the rainforest? Why do mammals have the chance to copy parents behavior? What are young mammals fed with and how?
 * How does hair and fur help a mammal?**
 * Why do mammals have to eat all the time?**
 * Write four new questions like these. The answers have to be found in the text.**

__**Understanding - Reading between the lines.**__
 * Draw a diagram to show how a mammal keeps its body at a constant temperature.**



Mammals are one of the few types of animals that can live in all sorts of habitats. Some live in The North Pole in the cold and wet while others can live in temperatures up to 45 degrees. The Amazon Rainforest has a number of habitats including the canopy for mammals such as flying squerells, the tree branches for mammals such as sloths, and the forest floor for animals such as big cats. Like any other animals mammals are territorial and will fight to keep their breeding grounds.
 * Use your heading and trigger words from one paragraph in the report to rewrite it in your own words. If you have time, have a go at another one.**

__**Applying - Using the information in another way.**__

Mammals are magical, awesome and great, They eat what they eat and they ate what they ate. They live in the forest, the desert the sea, They are all very different as you can see. Mammals are wicked, unkind and mean, But they are all special, That deserves to be seen.
 * Poetry: Write an acrostic poem about Marvelous Mammals.**

This morning as I got up I was so very, very cold and very, very hungry, so I quickly galloped to where my wife, Julie, was serving us all breakfast. There are eight of us in my family, but we are all so small it looks way less. Breakfast was fruit, especially bananas, it’s a family tradition. We ate loudly, chatting and shrieking with laughter at the stupidest of jokes, it was going to be a good day. As the sun rose higher the six little hyenas left leaving Julie and I to prowl around the breeding grounds. The fur skin over my body was keeping me warm, away from the cool frost covering the ground. Soon the local rabbit family came around so we fought them off, they weren’t going to wreck this home that took us so long to make. I was starting to get hungry then, so I grabbed my cellphone from the pocket of my goat skin jacket and rang pizza hut.
 * A day in the life of a mammal.**

__**Analysing - Identifying the feature that help mammals survive**__
 * Information web.**



__**Creating - Making Improvements**__

The Pentaros is really an amazing mammal. As its hearing can sometimes fail its other four senses are amazing. It has beautiful blue eyes that help it to see in the dark, avoiding night predators. The Pentaros’s smell is supreme as well. It can smell a predator [or food] from a mile away, literally. A young Pentaros learns the different smells of its family at a very young age so when it is older it can help the others to sniff out predators or victims.
 * The Ultimate Mammal**

The Pentaros’s diet is very simple, they eat almost everything. They’re digestive system is so strong that they could swallow a whole cat or small dog. They’re relaxed diet also comes in handy when food is short. While other mammals hunt for winter berries or left over fruit the Pentaros just laughs and eats a nearby stick or leaf. This tiny amount of food could keep them going for a whole day without weakening.

With its small, strong wings the Pentaros flies up to the forest canopy where they burrow in amongst the top-most branches. Their thick fur can keep the cold at a minimum and the rain water out. Every morning they leave they’re burrows at dawn and go wandering. This is a traditional thing amongst the Petaros Clans, they always go walking in packs at sunrise, no-one knows why.

The Clans of Pentaros are of about 6-8 always an even number of males and females. They all mate for life and are very protective over their partner.

Not only are the Pentatros’s senses amazing, protecting them from predators, but they can also camoflauge. When the Pentaros’s want to hide from tree top danger they will turn themselves a green that blends with that of the trees. This means that predators will walk/fly/jump right past without realising they are there.



This image is of a female Pentaros. You can tell it is female from the length of its eyelashes and the colour of its tail. All females have blue tips on their tails. You can also tell that this is a female by the way she sleeps. A female will sleep curled up in a ball, her wings tucked under herself.



This picture shows a male Pentaros. You can tell this creature is male because its tail is tipped in green and it has no eyelashes. The male Pentaros sleeps with its eyes open, quite a freaky sight really, they are always half awake. This means that they can see and hear everything around them while resting fully. They sleep like this as they know their duty is to protect their females.

The Pentaros is an amazing mammal and is well worth researching.

**The Holocaust**
This term we have being doing a webquest called The Children Of The Holocaust. It is all about life for children in the concentration camps and about expressing our thoughts on this horrific time. As part of this we read 'The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas', a novel about separation, hope, friendship and