Greetings and Salutations!

Howdy! Hi! Hello! G'Day!

How many ways can we say hello?

Inspired by Chapter 5 in Charlotte Web by E.B. White, I have created a simple PowerPoint presentation with various greetings and a Charlotte's Web theme.

The Australian Curriculum for English for Year 2 requires that students

understand that language varies when people take on different roles in social and classroom interactions and how the use of key interpersonal language resources varies depending on context.

This simple presentation that you can download for free can be adapted to suit your own needs and to add in greetings that your children might either use or have heard.

The slides can be used on a whiteboard projector to promote discussion about the different greetings that are used in different situations.
This is a great opportunity to practise manners and talk about the different expectations in various contexts and audiences.

The slides could be printed one to a page and laminated for a classroom bulletin board display, or they could be printed with several to a page to make small cards for activities.

An interesting activity would be to do a Silent Card Shuffle to sort the greetings from casual to formal.

Students could brainstorm more greetings and easily add more slides to the set.

Let me know how you would use these slides in your classroom!

Exploring Charlotte's Web

I love, love, love this book! I can't wait to read Charlotte's Web to my kids next term!
We are doing a local history study with a focus on the annual show that is held at the quaint, country-style showgrounds in our area.
To get us in the mood for going to the show, I am going to read Charlotte's Web to my class.
Charlotte's Web is the perfect opportunity for me to help my students develop a little more "staying power" when sitting on the carpet - one of my goals for them next term.
Charlotte's Web also lends itself to many great literacy activities!
I am busily reading the novel (again) and trying to come up with innovative and engaging activities to inspire and motivate my children.
I am developing a series of activities for people who want to use Charlotte's Web to address English core learning outcomes. We are implementing the new Australian Curriculum so I am using these standards as a guide, but Charlotte's Web is such a universal favourite that I am sure the activities will be useful for many teachers.
I am keen to develop activities that are more than just worksheets. No more "death by blackline master!"
The activities for the first chapter of Charlotte's Web are discussion, drama, cooperative work, display making etc.

I plan to include vocabulary words and comprehension questions for every chapter but then have a unique focus for each chapter as well.
Since in the first chapter, Fern is pleading with her father to spare the piglet's life, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to play around with persuasive texts. It is still a whole year until my students have to face the dreaded NAPLAN test but this is a great opportunity to get them started in thinking about persuasive texts. Developing comprehension skills never hurt anyone either!
The other key focus in this chapter is speaking verbs. In the English curriculum for Year 2, students need to look at how words are used to show gradation of feelings. E.B. White uses some great "saying verbs" in chapter one to describe the way that poor Fern is pleading with her father!
Download the Chapter 1 Activities for Exploring Charlotte's Web free!
Please, please, please let me know what you think. I would like to be developing activities that people find useful so feedback and suggestions are most welcome.
I hope you and your students love Charlotte's Web as much as I do!