Curriculum Areas: English Intercultural Understanding Unit: All About Me Series of Stories used to highlight the cultural differences

and similarities of Families across a range of texts. Through the exploration of other cultures students can gain a deeper understanding of their own identity and culture.

Stage/ Year: Stage 1 Unit duration: 10 weeks Study of: The Walking Stick Maxine Trottier (Vietnamese Story) Lighthouse Keepers Lunch (English Story) m.youtube.com/watch?\ Paper Horse Kim Xiong (Chinese Story) m.youtube.com/watch?\ Koala Lou Mem Fox Family Forest Kim Kane & Lucia Mascuillo m.youtube.com/watch?\

The Walking Stick by Maxine Trottier In this exquisitely wrought tale, young Van finds a walking stick at the foot of a huge teak tree. Blessed by Buddha, it becomes his talisman, his life long link to the past, and the support he will need to carry him into the uncertain future. For when the winds change blow, not even the deep forest of Vietnam remain safe. With the walking stick and his indomitable spirit, Van leads his family to safety and new land. Though the years pass in peace, the ever-present tap, tapping at the brass-tipped walking stick is Van's constant reminder of the customs, voices, and land he will always remember with love. When the stick's long odyssey is finally over, it is Van's granddaughter who carries it home and places it at Buddha's feet.

We want students to (outcomes): ENe-1A communicates with peers known adults in informal and guided activities demonstrating emerging skills of group interaction ENe-2A composes simple texts to convey an idea or message ENe-4A demonstrates developing skills and strategies to read, view and comprehend short, predictable texts on familiar topics in different media and technologies ENe-8B demonstrates emerging skills and knowledge of texts to read and view, and shows developing awareness of purpose, audience and subject matter ENe-9B demonstrates developing skills and knowledge in grammar, punctuation and vocabulary when responding to and composing texts ENe-10C thinks imaginatively and creatively about familiar topics, simple ideas and the basic features of texts when responding to and composing texts ENe-11D responds to and composes simple texts about familiar aspects of the world and their own experiences ENe-12E demonstrates awareness of how to reflect on aspects of their own and others learning

What do we want our students to learn? (Deep knowledge element) Syllabus content and stage 1 statements.

This learning matters because: Students reflect and communicate with others developing a sense of belonging to learning teams. Discovery of self-identity and cultural awareness of differences creates understanding and tolerance. Students use a wide range of thinking modes and develop metacognitive awareness. The diversity of knowledge and experiences with cultural traditions is valued.

Why does this learning matter? (Significance dimension) There clear links to prior and future learning and real world application.

Assessment task outline Tasks include incorporating all modes of English to develop language in a logical progression.

How will students demonstrate their deep understandi Tasks are designed with authentic purpose, audience and communication tools.

Weeks 1-10

The Walking Stick is a highly colourful book, which encourages discussion about families and tradition. Students listen to the story. In groups students discuss things, which have been handed down from their grandparents. They compare and contrast these to the walking stick. Brainstorm lists of things that can be passed down through families. Students follow up with writing about their own family.

There are a range of teaching resources to choose from to make displays and group activities. Sparklebox has word lists, word mats, picture sequencing sets. There are several you tube versions of the text. Students enjoyed comparing the food list of Mr Grinlings lunch with the foods that they eat. It is an excellent text to use as a springboard for discussing homes and viewing cultural differences in homes. The Semantic map on the next page provides lots of on task talk students will agree/ disagree and negotiate to complete task.

Paper Horse provides a springboard for discussion about working parents and the impact it has on the family. Students relate personal experiences about their own lives. This book is beautifully written in rhyme and is easy for students to write a recount of the story because the sequence is easy to follow. At the end of the book - it is written bilingually students can compare the two languages noting similarities and differences. Great art opportunities see next page.

Family Forest deals with another perspective of family life blended/ extended families. It provides a springboard for students to discuss their own family composition - compare/ contrast similarities and differences. HSIE Unit Lets Celebrate links with this English unit.

Family Forest by Kim Kane

Lucia Masciullo

Cloze Activity
People often . me whos in my . I . two sisters, Eliza and Harriet. When hes surprised he says, Well, cut .. my legs call me shorty! Hes funny, my Dad is married to Babs. Shes . step-mum. This is . Mum. I call .. Jane. Charlie is my step-brother, but I call him my brother. While some kids have a . tree, we have a . forest!

Koala Lou by Mem Fox

Stage 1 - Literacy Unit Of Work
Is an integrated unit of work with Stage 1 HSIE
Identifying Us
CUS1.3 Identifies customs, practices, symbols, languages and traditions of their family and of other families. identifies and describes the groups that individuals belong to a family, describes the activities that give identity to groups . expresses feelings and values that they and others feel are important

Outcomes & Criteria

Teaching/Learning

Language Focus

Students identify adjectives used to describe the nouns to build character descriptions

Students use appropriate language to express feelings & emotions. Develop their expressive language to communicate more effectively. Likes/dislikes, comparisons,

justification, explanations In my family we. In my opinion because

identifies doing, thinking, feeling and saying verbs in a narrative identifies repeated words identifies conjunctions, e.g. and, but, so, and understands that they join clauses in sentences identifies noun groups in text and discusses the effect of their use in comparison to using a noun only identifies adverbial phrases that tell us more about the action in terms of where, when, why, how, and discusses the effect of this use in the text identifies words that name characters, places and things and knows these are called nouns identifies action words and knows that these are called verbs identifies adjectives and understands that their function is to describe (in terms of size, shape etc.)

 identifies pronouns and understands that they are used instead of a noun, and understands the purpose of personal and possessive pronouns.

Grammar and Punctuation uses adjectives to provide more information about nouns uses pronoun references accurately uses different types of verbs (action, thinking, seeing, feeling) in own writing uses past tense relatively consistently in literary texts uses relating verbs to describe classify information reports uses most common punctuation marks, e.g. spaces between words, lower-case and capital letters, full stops usually uses capital letters at the beginning of sentences

 usually uses full stops at the end of sentences experiments with other punctuation marks, e.g. commas, quotation marks, question marks. Grammar and Punctuation prepares banks of words for a particular purpose, e.g. word chains, word sets uses different types of verbs, e.g. action, thinking, seeing, feeling, relating uses a variety of conjunctions and connectives to connect groups of words and clauses uses causeeffect relationships uses abstract nouns related to topic uses a range of types of adjectives and discusses the effect of adjective choices in own writing uses figurative language appropriately in text types identifies and corrects such things as spelling errors, incomplete sentences or missing punctuation in own writing. segments word into individual sounds and forms letter that relates

to the sound isolates and writes the initial, medial and final sound of a word writes words using blends, letter combinations and long vowel sounds spells words using letter names writes letters for double consonants, writes letters for double vowels, as in seed, dead draws on knowledge of sight words and high frequency words when writing a text, e.g. is, are, the, they, she, he, my, school, home draws on knowledge of common letter patterns and lettersound correspondences when writing a text

WS1.9 Plans, reviews and produces a small range of simple literary and factual texts for a variety of purposes on familiar topics for known readers. WS1.10 Produces texts using the basic grammatical features and punctuation conventions of the text type WS1.10 uses past tense relatively consistently in a recount WS1.10 usually uses most common writing conventions, e.g. spaces between words, lower-case and upper-case letters, full stops WS1.10 writes short recounts of personal experience WS1.11 attempts to spell by listening carefully to the sounds in the word and trying to write them accurately and in sequence WS1.11 spells some words correctly and uses some strategies to spell unfamiliar words

WS1.10 starts writing complex sentences WS1.10 uses a variety of conjunctions and connectives to sequence events, e.g. first, next, last of all, before WS1.10 uses adjectives to provide more information about nouns, WS1.10 uses adverbs and adverbial phrases to indicate when, where, how . WS1.10 uses different types of verbs (action, thinking, seeing, feeling) in own writing WS1.9 Plans, reviews and produces a small range of simple literary and factual texts for a variety of purposes on familiar topics for known readers.