Claudia Rocha ED2631
WA Curriculum: English Year 1 – Elmer by David McKee
Strand, sub-strand and content
description
LANGUAGE
Expressing and Developing Ideas
-Explore differences in words that
represent people, places and things
(nouns, including pronouns), happenings
and states (verbs), qualities (adjectives)
and details such as when, where and how
(adverbs) (ACELA1452)
Language for Interaction
-Explore different ways of expressing
emotions, including verbal, visual, body
language and facial expressions
(ACELA1787)
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Assignment Two
Activities
Descriptive Language Brainstorm:
After reading the book together as a class, the
students must complete a brainstorm on the different
words that can be used to describe Elmer (adjectives)
This teaches the students the different adjectives that
can be used to describe places, people and objects.
Students will be asked to not only focus on words to
describe Elmer’s appearance in the book, but also the
personal qualities that Elmer reflected throughout the
book. For example, Elmer is funny, colourful and
caring. These words can also be put up on display on
the word wall in the classroom.
Emotion Identification:
During a shared reading lesson, the teacher will be
reading the book Elmer to the students. Once the
teacher comes across a quote said by Elmer in the
book, the teacher will ask the students questions such
as:
- “What emotion do you think Elmer is feeling right
now?”
- “Who can show me a facial expression that matches
this emotion that Elmer is feeling?”
- “How can you tell that Elmer is feeling this emotion?”
- “Why do you think he is feeling this way?”
The teacher will then get the students to say the
sentence out loud but ensure that they apply emotion
and expression to the sentence that corresponds with
the emotion that Elmer was feeling at the time. The
teacher will do this each time an emotion is evident in
the story.
After reading the book the students will be asked to go
back to their seats each with a colouring page. On this
page the students will colour in the different elephant
faces each demonstrating different emotions. After
colouring in the faces, the students must label each
face with its correct emotion name.
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Text Structure and Organisation
-Recognise that different types of
punctuation, including full stops, question
marks and exclamation marks, signal
sentences that make statements, ask
questions, express emotion or give
commands (ACELA1449)
LITERATURE
Literature and Context
-Discuss how authors create characters
using language and images
(ACELT1581)
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ED2631 Assignment Two
Punctuation Types:
Students will participate in a shared reading activity on
the book. Each student will have a paddle, on one side
will be a full stop and on the other side will be a
question mark. When reading the book together as a
class, the teacher will ask the students to hold up their
paddle each time a full stop or question mark appears
in the sentence. When coming across the punctuation
in the book, the teacher will pause and ask a student
the following questions:
- “Why do you think it is a question mark/full stop?”
- “How do you know this?”
The teacher will then get a student from the class to
read the sentence out aloud using the type of
expression that matches the punctuation type.
Text Innovation (FSR MD, p.117)
After reading the book to the students in a shared
reading lesson, the teacher will ask the students the
following questions:
- “What are some features that we notice about Elmer
that sets him apart from the other elephants?”
- “What personal qualities does Elmer have that sets
him apart from the other elephants?”
Whilst the students are answering these questions the
teacher will be listing all the vocabulary that the
students are using when answering the questions. The
teacher will then ask the students questions such as:
- “What happens if we said that Elmer was the opposit
of all of these qualities that we have listed?”
- “How do you think the story would change if Elmer
was sad or not colourful and plain like the rest of the
other elephants?”
The teacher will then get class to recreate a scene
from the book by changing a component from the
story. For example, change the setting, the
appearance of the other animals or Elmer’s personalit
in the story. The students will present their idea
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Examining Literature
-Discuss features of plot, character and
setting in different types of literature and
explore some features of characters in
different texts (ACELT1584)
Creating Literature
-Recreate texts imaginatively using
drawing, writing, performance and digital
forms of communication (ACELT1586)
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ED2631 Assignment Two
changes to the class and the teacher will write down
the newly designed scene from the book on the white
board.
The teacher will then turn this into a book and put it in
the reading corner for the students to re-read
whenever they please. This will encourage the
students to notice why the author creates characters in
a story in such a way.
Elmer Story Map (FSR MD, p.109)
After reading the story book as a class during a
modelled reading lesson, the teacher and students wil
together construct a story map on the book. The
teacher will have images of the different settings from
the story and will ask the students what setting comes
first. The teacher will do this by picking students at
random to come up to the white board and stick the
setting image on the board in the order that the
settings appeared in the story.
The teacher will then ask the students to think back to
when they had previously learnt about the features of
story and ask some students to identify where the
beginning, problem, solution and ending is on the stor
map. The teacher will label these parts on the story
map and then get the students each to go off to a table
and colour in a small Elmer elephant. Once completing
this, the elephants will be stuck onto the whiteboard in
a line forming a track that will follow the direction of the
story map from the beginning to the end of the story.
Read and Retell (FSR MD, p.107)
The teacher will read the story to the class and then
break the students off into groups of four or five. Each
group will be given a part of the story that the students
must retell through drama. The students must come u
with different ways on expressing the emotions of
Elmer in their retell as well as ensure that they can
demonstrate the setting of the part of the story that
they were given successfully. Each group will then
present their drama retell of the story to the class with
the teacher first reading out the part of the story they
will be retelling and then getting the students to
conduct their drama retell. The teacher can ask the
Claudia Rocha ED2631 Assignment Two

students in each group questions such as:

- “How did you feel after you put yourself in Elmer’s

shoes?”

- “Would you have felt any other emotions compared t

the emotions that Elmer was feeling in this scene?”

LITERACY

Interpreting, Analysing, Evaluating Persuasive Pieces:

-Describe some differences between Write a persuasive piece about why it is good to be
imaginative informative and persuasive different like Elmer. After reading the text with the
texts (ACELY1658) students the teacher will ask the students questions
such as:

- “What did you like about Elmer the most?”

- “Why do you think all the other elephants liked Elmer

so much?”

- “What made Elmer different compared to the other

elephants?”

The students must clearly identity features that they

like about Elmer and then explain in their own words
why they think being different is good. Students must
also be able to clearly structure the persuasive piece,
coming up with three things to support their argument
on why it is good to be different. The teacher will give
the students prompts to assist them in starting their
persuasive pieces such as:

-It is good to be different because…

-Firstly; Secondly; Thirdly or Finally…

-This is why it is good to be different.

The students’ persuasive pieces will then be glued

onto an elephant template and then displayed around
the room.

Interacting with Others Elmer Sock Puppets:

-Make short presentations using some Design and construct an Elmer sock puppet plan as a

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Claudia Rocha
introduced text structures and language,
for example opening statements
(ACELY1657)
Creating Texts
-Write using unjoined lower case and
upper case letters (ACELY1663)
ED2631 Assignment Two
class. The students and teacher will sit down together
on the mat after completing a shared reading lesson o
the book. The teacher and students will together
design a step by step method of how they need to
make the sock puppets. The students will help list the
materials and tell the teacher what steps need to be
completed first in the construction process of the sock
puppet, whilst the teacher writes their instructions on
the white board.
After writing up the instructions designed by the
students on the activity, the students will follow the
steps and create their own Elmer sock puppets. The
teacher will display their Elmer sock puppets around
the room and create an instruction book on all the
steps that were discussed by the class and put it on
display in the reading corner.
Favourite Sentences (FSR MD, p.108)
The students will re-read the book Elmer as a class
during a shared reading lesson. The teacher will ask
the students to keep in mind a favourite sentence of
theirs from the book. The teacher will ask the class for
some of their favourite sentences from the book, which
she will then write down on the white board. Then the
students will write down this sentence from the book
onto an A4 strip of coloured paper with dotted writing
lines to guide the student’s writing.
The students must write the sentence using unjoined
upper and lower case letters and ensure that they hav
inserted the correct punctuation into the sentence. The
sentences will then be put onto display around the
classroom and can be used for whole-class reading.