Inspired by: Flotsam - Week 1

In an engaging literacy activity inspired by the book "Flotsam", children are tasked with exploring the meaning of the title and its relevance to the story. The session begins with a discussion where students share their initial thoughts on what 'flotsam' might mean, offering justifications for their ideas. This is followed by consulting a dictionary to verify their definitions, leading to a discovery of the word's true meaning and related synonyms such as 'debris', 'refuse', and 'wreckage'. The children then examine the title page illustrations, depicting items washed ashore, and use their newly acquired vocabulary to describe these objects. They are encouraged to delve into their imaginations and create a backstory for an item, pondering its original owner and the journey it took to reach the seashore.

Another facet of the learning experience involves investigating a sea creature featured in the book, which resembles a crustacean, likely a hermit crab. The children are invited to share any prior knowledge they have about hermit crabs and are then guided to research further, recording their findings. They learn about the hermit crab's fascinating behaviour of changing shells as they grow. Complementing this, the activity 'Magnified Words' focuses on enhancing descriptive language skills. Children observe an illustration of a boy, whom they name Jack, as he examines a crab. They practice expanding simple sentences into more descriptive noun phrases, adding adjectives, nouns, and prepositional phrases to enrich their writing. Working in pairs, they transform basic sentences about a man, a bucket, and a sandcastle, and then describe the spatial relationships between various objects in the illustration using prepositional adverbs. This exercise not only enriches their vocabulary but also hones their understanding of syntax and spatial awareness in descriptive writing.