Year 5 have had a super exciting day today, as they had the pleasure to work with one of Cypress’ favourite authors and storytellers – Margaret Bateson-Hill.
To start the day, we were treated to one of Margaret’s stories in a whole-school assembly, where Margaret shared with us the tale of Lau Lau and the Dragon Mountain. Once we all joined in with the introductory song – with plenty of actions to match the lyrics – we were whisked off to China. We heard all about Lau Lau and her magical abilities to fold and cut papers into incredible patterns, as well as the envious emperor who wanted to use Lau Lau’s powers for his gain. The children (and the staff!) were all engrossed in Margaret’s telling of the tale, and were all hanging onevery word said.
After the wonderful assembly, Margaret worked with each of the Y5 classes to produce some fairy tale themed poems, to support the children’s reading of ‘The Sleeper and The Spindle‘ in their English lessons. In the workshops, Margaret shared some magical poems she herself had created and also went through the writing process; how to focus on characters and details. The children also loved seeing the objects Margaret brought in, as this helped them to bring the link between magical objects and fairy tales to life.
To write their poem – called a cinquain – the children had to think of a fairy tale character or object, and then use their imaginations to come up with some adjectives and verbs that link with their starting word. They then produced a very short, but powerful, poem using this vocabulary. Make sure you ask your child about their poem, as all the children did so well!
Take a look at some of the photos below to see how the children got on today.
The Y5 Team
