The Anzac Biscuit Man & Other Classic Kiwi Tales - the book that just keeps on giving.

One of my most favourite books to use in the classroom, as the teacher and as a reliever, is The Anzac Biscuit Man and Other Classic Kiwi Tales by Peter Millett.

There are a number of ways I have used this book over the years it has been in my posession.

• I have simply read the stories to classes - occasionally this has even resulted in applause from a class in appreciation of good expressive reading.
• I have focused on the rich language within the book to teach alliteration, idioms, colloquial language, onomatopoeia and all sorts.
• I have used the stories to focus in on virtues and life lessons.
• I have used the stories to enable the students to be creative.

And that last point is what I am going to focus on in this post, because I've used this book twice in the same class in recent weeks while relieving and the children have lapped it up and I've been professionally satisfied.


So the class I was with is a fairly confident group of Year 7/8s in a semi-rural school on the edge of Hamilton, whose student are actually pretty urban.  These students are articulate, used to using ICT and are keen to express their creativity.  I've enjoyed these students immensely each day I have been with them.


On the first day I took this book in and gave them the choice out of these stories:

• The Three Woolly Coats Fluff
• The Hare and the Tuatara
• Pigs in Sheds
• The Little Blue Swamp Hen
• The Anzac Biscuit Man
• The Dodgy Duckling

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the book, here are the stories Peter Millett was re-imagining or, as I like to call it, Kiwi-ifying:

• The Three Billy Goats Gruff
• The Hare and the Tortoise
• The Three Little Pigs
• The Little Red Hen
• The Gingerbread Man
• The Ugly Duckling

The children choose the The Dodgy Duckling on the first day and I gave them the following options:

• do a mini-research project on kiwi and negotiate how you want to present it (e.g. poster, PowerPoint, etc).
• Kiwi-ify another classic tale or nursery rhyme
• what does it mean to be a "kiwi"?

A lot of the students choose to research and present information on kiwi.  Some choose to do this as a poster; some choose to do this as a digital presentation.  Some choose to work independently and some choose to work in twos or threes.


One group choose to combine the idea of the kiwi and the ducks with their learning about the Treaty of Waitangi and the Land Wars and created a mini-movie of a land war between ducks and kiwi.


When the group who were at an intersports for swimming came back, they were employed in the movie group or by others to help finish their projects or completed outstanding work.  But one girl decided to Kiwi-ify the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle and publish and illustrate it.


Alas, I did not take pictures of their work that day.  I am kicking myself now.


Yesterday, the students choose the story The Anzac Biscuit Man.  We then brainstormed some possible activities inspired by the story, as seen in the picture below:

The red pictures on the right were used to decide which story we would read.  But as you can see we brainstormed:

• play - direct or alternate version
• movie/movie trailer
• puppet show
• comic strip
• story map (including a battle ship type map)
• movie poster
• research recipe and present as either a page in a flash as recipe book or a step by step guide
• song/rap/spoken work

Later on a student came up with another option: the packaging of the Anzac Biscuit Man biscuits (see picture below).

Immediately I saw students making decisions on their choice of activity, who they would work with and how they were going to get on with the task.  There was a high level of enthusiasm and a willingness to help out other groups when required as "subcontractors".


The group who had made the movie on the ducks and kiwi having a land war the week before bunched together to make a sequel.  Another group of boys wrote a script and decided to make a direct version of The Anzac Biscuit Man as a movie.  A group of girls decided to make a live play and asked to hire students from another class to help them out as actors.  One girl decided to make her's as a movie trailer.  She hired other students as actors but did the technical side herself.


One pair decided to make a movie poster, with one doing the technical work on the computer, while the other person did the drawings.  Another pair made a comic strip based on Anzac Biscuit Men breaking out of an oven to take revenge on frogs.  One boy came up with the idea of the Anzac Biscuit Man combined with The Flash to make a new super hero and merchanising biscuits.


I loved that the students came up with ways of making masks for their characters:

   

  

 

I loved how they were using their creativity to write scripts:

I loved that they were using their creativity to create a comic strip:

I loved that they were using their skills in multimedia to combine a drawn picture with a poster made on the computer:

Sadly I neglected to take a copy of their finished product.  But they took a photo of their characters with the iPad, got it on the laptop, using the Snipping Tool they cut around the picture and inserted it in their poster they made on the laptop.


And I loved how one girl used the movie trailer app on the iPad to map out her trailer and filmed it up:

At the end of the day, the students invited the neighbouring class (some of whom they had hired to help them out), the DP and the principal to watch the finished product.  The students who had gone to the swimming sports yesterday had a bit of jealousy and their teacher was thrilled they had had a creative day and was looking forward to viewing what they had achieved.


Personally I found it very satisfying professionally.  Yes, if they were my class, we would spend longer on story development and getting a better finished product.  But what I am finding is that what we do achieve in one day is a lot of problem solving (socially, creatively, technically), learning about managing our time, learning about working in a group situation, learning about supporting other people in their learning.  I'm just their to make sure they achieve something at the end of the day.


And I can not wait to go back and see what they can come up with in reponse to the next story!


This is a Storify of the tweets from yesterday:

Sadly, Storify has deleted itself from the Social Media scene, so all my Storify stories have gone.  😭😭😭😭😭

My first Skype session with my class.

Ok, sometimes I am a little behind the times.

I confess - I'd never done a Skype session with my class - until last week.

This is how it all came about:

In the term break I purchased this book:

I blogged about it in this post, Anzac Books I am going to use this coming term, and the author of the above book, Peter Millett, commented on my blog.  A short conversation ensued, he said he'd love to talk to my class about the book, I followed Peter on Twitter.

I read The Anzac Puppy to my class and they really enjoyed it.  Of course they wanted to know if it was based on a true story or not.  I said to them that the author wanted to talk with them, so we should ask him questions about the book and being the author.  I split them up into groups of three, and these are the questions they came up with:

The other week I tweeted photos of the questions to Peter.  And eventually we settled on a Skype conversation.

As I said, I was a "Skype in the classroom newbie".  My previous solo Skype conversation was with a mate to help him prepare for an interview, and prior to that it was gate crashing my Mum's conversations with my aunty and some family friends in Aussie.  I'd just never really had a good reason to Skype with a class before.  But Skyping with an author is a very authentic reason.

Mistake #1:  Not prepping the kids on how to do a Skype session.
Actually, this was the one and only big mistake - I pretty much sprung this on them, by telling them we were doing it after the Year 7 & 8s left for Tech - who wants to miss out after all?  Then, by the time I set up the computer at the end of lunch and got on Skype, Peter was there, so no time to tell the kids what I was expecting.

Now it wasn't a complete disaster.  The children were very excited to see Peter and know that they were going to get the answers to their questions.  They all gathered around and at the beginning were attentive.  But as time went on, they drifted off to be silly while the teacher's back was literally turned.  Some went off to draw pictures.  Any child who wasn't participating wasn't hearing the answers, and certainly wasn't engaged as I expected.

Peter's wife is also a teacher, so while I was embarrassed at the rudeness of some children, he rolled with it and was very understanding indeed, which I was grateful for.  After the conversation ended I did the growling thing with the kids, the one that starts with, "I'm extremely disappointed... why do you think that is?"

Peter was great.  He told the kids something very important: he has loved writing ever since he was a little boy.  He told us about how long it can take to write a book.  He started researching The Anzac Puppy in 2001 and it wasn't published until 2014... that's the longest time it has taken him to write a book.  Peter loves writing for children, and he loves writing stories that will make people laugh.  He also told us about some of the things that inspire him and the book he has just completed that is next to be published - but we were sworn to secrecy.

My class and I have the opportunity to have another Skype conversation with a class in Australia.  So I am thinking we will definitely have to nut out some expectations prior to doing the next chat.  The children are also keen to Skype an ex-teaching colleague of mine who is now working as an advisor on writing in schools, including my school.  I said we would ask her next time she came to the school.

Later that day on Twitter I started a random #edchatNZ chat about personalising learning for teachers (that is for another blog however).  I mentioned my first Skype chat during it, saying how I had done some "just in time learning that day".  As a result, now another teacher is pursuing Peter Millett's books for use in his class and may also do a Skype chat with his class and Peter Millett.  So there is a win out of the day.

Creating excitement about learning for Anzac Day

The other week I put up a new display about Anzac Day. It's a pretty tame one considering all the possible things I could put up. But the main idea is to get the kids thinking and it gives them some independent activities to do.

 

 

The following Monday a couple of really cool buzz things happened for me.  One girl had been looking through the local newspapers at the weekend, and when she arrived at school she came over and said, "Look what I found out about Anzac Day in the newspapers!"

 

I loved the fact that she had cut these  articles out of the local papers off her own bat and brought them into school. So I immediately gave her the pins and asked her to add them to the display.

 

 

 

Later the same day, another girl came to me after silent reading. She had one of the books from my Anzac collection she had been reading during SSR.  "Look Miss D.  That's from the poem we had last week."

 

She found it in Jackie French's book A Day to Remember - The Story of Anzac Day.

 

 

 

Each week we have a poem of the week and in the first week of this term we did For the Fallen by Robert Laurence Binyon.

 

This is a pretty full on poem to give to students aged 7, but my current class caters for Years 3-8 in a small two class rural school.  Not only do I have to cater for the younger children in my class, but I need to challenge the more able and older children as well.  So each week there is a different sort of poem, often with a theme I want to explore.

With this poem we looked at the imagery in the poem, new vocabulary, the variety of punctuation, and blends - a new aspect each day.  We also found out a little bit about who Robert Lawrence Binyon was.

 

Since then, other children have also read this book and recognised the extract from Binyon's poem as well.  It is all about planting that seed and seeing what takes root.

 

So what else have I got going on in this display?

 

This is a great poster I got from the Scholastic Book Club a few years ago (why don't they come like they used to anymore?).  This is a great poster to get the kids thinking about the symbols and rituals of Anzac Day.

                    

 

I got these words that are in the Vocabulary Expander out of the book Gallipoli Reckless Valour a few years ago.  The point of the Vocabulary Expander is to introduce and extend the vocabulary of the topic to the students and help them create meaning of these words.  The students each choose a word and bags it by writing their name on the back with a dry erase pen.  It the top box they write the word as a title.  On the next lines they record the definition that best fits the context.  They must start with a dictionary first, then if they can not find it, they can Google the definition.  The next set of lines is when they write a sentence of their own using the word.  In the bottom box they draw a picture to illustrate the sentence they wrote, demonstrating the context of the word as well.  This is an independent reading time activity and can also be worked on during topic time.

This set of statistics is a good way to get the students thinking about and discussing the impact of the First World War on a small, young country like New Zealand.

It gets them thinking about women and how they contributed to the war effort.  It makes them think about the contribution of Maori and the people of the Pacific to the New Zealand Armed Forces.  It brings to their attention the fact that there was something called a conscientious objector.

These statistics also brings death and the stark reality of war into focus when you look at how many soldiers did not come back out of the103,000 who served overseas, as well as the ones who came back wounded in some way or another.

And is it not amazing to know that there are approximately 500 civic memorials in New Zealand commemorating these men?

These are for the older students in my class.  I created these a couple of years ago for independent inquiry on a range of aspects of New Zealand's participation in war.  The students choose which one they will do.  Each one has web links and different activities to complete based on De Bono's Thinking Hats or Gardner's Multiple Intelligences. 

The topics I have put out for the small group of students to do this year include:

• Conscientious Objectors
• Le Quesnoy and New Zealand
• Helping the Wounded
• WWI Memorials
• Medals
• Mascots for WW1 & WWII

The tasks may require them to create something on the computer, do a poster, or record the facts in their books. 

One of the first books I read my class this term was The Anzac Puppy  by Peter Millett and illustrated by Trish Bowles.  I blogged about this book during the term break after I bought a fresh collection of stories to share with the class.  Peter Millett somehow really quickly saw my blog and responded to it, saying he'd love to discuss the book with the class.  My class brainstormed questions for Peter (see below) and we're set up to do a Skype session with Peter this week.

 

 



In my opinion I can not set up an Anzac Day display without the immortal words of Ataturk, the Turkish commander at Gallipoli and later leader of Turkey:

And it is also good to get some other background on some important Gallipoli knowledge and Anzac traditions:

Finally, I was away the other day and the reliever read the class Ceasar the Anzac Dog by Patricia Stroud and illustrated by Bruce Potter.

 And he drew this for the kids on the board, so I photographed it, printed it and added it to the display:

 

 

 

I love how everyone who enters my class brings yet another little bit extra to what we are learning and carries on the inspiration.

Anzac Day books I'm going to use this coming term.

Anyone who has delved into this blog before may have noticed that I have one or two posts about what I have taught or done with my class for Anzac Day.  (See the label list on the side to find other Anzac Day posts). 

 

This year Anzac Day falls right in the middle of the term break (again) in New Zealand.  Yesterday I went shopping.  I had seen the book shop brochures and the Scholastic Book Club, so I had a fair idea what this year's crop of new books on Anzac Day were... and I couldn't resist.

 

First up is a picture book, Jim's Letters, by Glyn Harper (the Massey University professor who also wrote The Donkey Man) and illustrated by Jenny Cooper.

 

 

 

What a beautifully illustrated and presented book.  The premise is simple: two brothers, one off to Gallipoli, the younger at home on the farm with the family, writing letters to each other.  The narrative simply states who sent the letter from where and when.  The rest of the story is told through the letters themselves: postcards, letters (some which have to be lifted open or taken out of an envelope), one on a scrap of cardboard.

 

It is a gorgeous hard back book, but not one I'll be letting my class have willy-nilly with the pull outs and lift ups that could easily be ripped or lost.  I will be setting some clear parameters around how this book will be shared.

 

At the end of the book it talks about "boy soldiers" - the soldiers who were under age, some as young as 14, who fought, died and survived Gallipoli.  This will be an interesting avenue of learning to take with the class.

 

The next book is The Anzac Puppy by Peter Millett and Trish Bowles.  This is a paperback picture book.

 

 

Again, a beautifully illustrated book.  It continues on with a theme well worn now in children's war picture books of animals at war.  The premise is that a little girl gets a puppy called Freda, a New Zealand soldier comes along and likes the dog so takes her to the Western Front as the mascot for the company.  The young soldier takes solace in the dog as his friends are killed or felled by sickness.  And I'm not going to tell you the rest because it will spoil it for you.

 

Apparently there was a dog called Freda with New Zealand troops on the Western Front, and that dog has inspired this story, although this is a fictitious story.  At the end of the story there is an explanation about what is now known about the real Freda and the soldiers she was with.

 

The third book is another paperback picture book, Best Mates, by Philippa Werry and Bob Kerr.  Many teachers and students will know Philippa's work with the School Journal and Connected series, while Bob Kerr is most famous for his illustration in Terry and the Gunrunners and After the War.



 

 

This story introduces the reader to three best mates, the narrator and his mates Harry and Joe, who grew up together on the same street and went to school together.  Then they signed up to go to war together.  It goes on to explain how they went to Gallipoli, what happened there, what happened after the war and a return to Gallipoli years later.  I won't spoil the rest.

 

Again, at the end of the story, there is some additional information about where Gallipoli is, how our troops got there, what it was like, how we remember those who fell, and some websites to visit.

 

This book I have not read yet (I've only had it 27 hours at the time of writing).  This is David Hill's latest book Brave Company.  David Hill's book My Brother's War  was the focus of my last blog.

This book is about sixteen-year-old Boy Seaman Russell Purchas who is stationed on HMNZS Taupo  in 1951 going into the Korean conflict.

I'm very excited about this book because most New Zealand war literature for children focuses on World Wars one and two, and there is very little on any later wars and conflicts we have sent children to.  Also, there is very little for children on our own New Zealand wars in the mid 19th century (hint, hint writers).

Now, I probably won't read it to my class, but I intend on reading it myself and then "selling" the book to the class by reading a teaser page, and then hopefully one of my more confident readers will take it on to read.  I'm picking this will be another great book to get boys reading, but I only have girls that will pick it up at the moment.