Autumn 2 - The Firework Maker's Daughter
Lila doesn't just want to be a Firework-Maker's daughter, she wants to be a Firework-Maker herself! But although she's learned a lot she still must get through the most difficult and dangerous part of her apprenticeship - and her father won't tell her what it is.
In search of this final Firework-Making secret, Lila heads off alone on a journey. It is a journey filled with dangers beyond anything she could have imagined, a journey on which she will learn so much more than the one secret she set out to find...
This half term in Mulberry Class, we will be following Lila on her journey and meeting some of her friends along the way!
We began our new adventure thinking about Lila's predicament. She has a big decision to make - should she go off and become a Firework-Maker or should she follow her father's command and stay home to get a husband? We thought of reasons for both sides of the argument and created a conscience alley. Lila walked down the middle and each side tried to persuade her why she should do that. We then wrote an argument where we tried to tell Lila exactly what we think she should do and why.
We then read a little further and found out that Chulak went to ask Lalchand for the final ingredient to become a firework-maker. We re-created the conversation as part of our drama, before looking at the rules of direct speech. We then wrote the conversations out using the sandwich method of direct speech.
Lila then put some fireworks in her backpack and we all thought it was quite stupid that she had done that and not very safe. As it was Bonfire Night, on Thursday we then thought about how to be safe around fireworks. We completed a quiz and Mr Cooper was very impressed with our knowledge around staying safe with fireworks. Parents - test yourself with our quiz below!
In Guided Reading, we have thinking about what we know about the character of Lila. We created a 'role on the wall' where on the inside of the character, we wrote everything we definitely KNEW about Lila from the book. Around the outside, we wrote what we INFERRED about Lila based on clues in the book.
In art ,we learnt about crosshatching as a method of drawing. Crosshatching is drawing lines in different directions to create darker tones. We created a mood board where we practiced the different ways to hatch (horizontal, vertical and diagonal) and then we designed our own Crackle Dragon firework using this method of drawing.
We have begun this week thinking about where our book is set and where Lila is from - Indonesia. We learnt about Lila's village and compared it to where we live. We completed a Burn2Learn where we thought about reasons why each statement was either Indonesia or Leeds.
We read further to think about Lila's progress on her journey to Mount Merapi. Lila comes across a jungle so today in Lower Key Stage 2, we created our own jungle! The children came dressed in jungle animals and we created a jungle on the playground. Each class thought carefully about how they moved and the noises they made, then we had a game of 'predators and prey'. Back in class, we wrote AMAZING setting descriptions of the jungle Lila journeyed through.
Practising our animal sounds
Thinking about how the animals move
Today in geography, we have thought further about the journey Lila is taking to get to Mount Merapi. We analysed the pages of the book and then designed a map for Chulak to use to find Lila. With our partner, we then wrote questions and they had to find out the grid reference our feature was in by putting a letter first and then a number. Can you answer some of the children’s questions in the pictures?
Next, we read on to discover that Lila needs to get to the other end of the river. She finds a river taxi but little does she know the sailors are actually pirates!! We imagineered Lila's journey by getting on board 'The Bloody Murderer' and travelling on the river. We then became Lila and wrote diaries about or eventful day!
This morning, we received a letter from Rambashi who told us he needed our help. His jungle grill wasn't getting many customers because Hamlet was always moving around (Hamlet was his walking billboard) and Rambashi needed our help to get a more permanent advert! He sent us a letter alongside a 'taster menu' for his diner. We tried the foods he served and then thought about what makes a good advert. We tried maggots, crocodile, mealworms, crickets and wild berries.
We read on to find out that Chulak and Hamlet had made it in time to the Emerald Lake to ask the Goddess for some special water. In art this week, we thought about the skills of contour line drawing and circulism. We decided to recreate the image in the book of the goddess. We began by playing a game of blind contour drawing which we found really difficult. Then we contoured the outline of the goddess and later on in the week we used circulism to create the effects of the water.
We read on to discover Lila was making progress on her journey to Mount Merapi. We decided to research Mount Merapi and created an informative leaflet on Purple Mash about it.
When Lila got to the top of the mountain, she looked a bit of a mess. Her hair was scraggy and she had cut and bleeding knees. We imagined what she would look like at the top of the mountain and wrote a description of her.
We've had an important mission this week in Mulberry Class. We received an email from Lila and Lalchand asking for our help to save Lalchand's life. They had been invited to a firework competition by the king and if Lila and Lalchand lost, Lalchand would die - no pressure. In DT this week, we have been thinking about the different types of fireworks we could make to save Lalchand's life. We designed boxes for our fireworks, created bus advertisements on big paper and wrote a persuasive advert for Lila and Lalchand to choose ours.
The day of the firework competition arrived and we were all very excited. We received special tickets to a VIP after party and after we watched the competition, the children got to enjoy some champagne and sweets (some had a little bit too much). Then, we were lucky enough to meet Lila and Dr Puffenflasch who told us all about their day. We wrote recounts about our day at the festival, as our adventure came to an end.
To finish our adventure, we read to the end of the book where we discovered that Lila had in fact become a firework-maker because she had the 3 gifts all along: talent, luck and perseverance.
We really enjoyed this book and the adventure!