Wednesday 27 November 2019

Time to Read

Divided in groups, my Class 8 students chose, read and shared their thoughts about different books:

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

The story takes place in England, in the 19th century.
The main characters are David Copperfield, his mother Clara, their servant Peggotty and his aunt Betsey Trotwood.
David was a blonde, small boy that went through a lot of character development and childhood trauma. He is sweet by heart, innocent but naive.
Clara was a young woman and mother to David. She is fateful and loves her son very much.
Peggotty was an older lady that was gentle and selfless and that basically kept family together. She was really nice.
Betsey Trotwood was David's aunt that first appears as strict, but later we find out she is very nice as she agrees to take care of David when he was homeless.
They are very likeable characters.
David was really inspiring throughout the book because he really went through a lot of bad things and he managed not to give up.
Peggotty is our favourite character because she always made sure her family was alright.
This story is about David's life and the difficulties he experienced.
Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. As David was a little kid, his mother married a strict and rough man Edward Murdstone. His stepfather beat him everyday for a lot of little mistakes and later made him go to a boarding school. He met some really good friends, though. However, he meets one of them later in life, James Steerforth, that turns out not to be so good as David thought.
David, with his aunt's help, studies to become a lawyer. As he does, he meets Mr Wickfield who also helps him, but his assistant Uriah Heep makes him feel weird at the start. It later turns out he wanted to be the one in charge, not Mr Wickfield, and made him become drunk and not capable of working.
However, David also meets Agnes, Mr Wickfield's daughter that helps him figure out Steerforth wasn't as good as he thought and they become closer as Uriah wants to marry her. They later in life marry each other, but, before that, he meets Dora. He fell in love with her at first sight. Even though her father doesn't support their relationship, they marry. But, she dies because she was a very fragile and a weak woman. Her last wish was that Agnes should continue her role in David's life, meaning, she should become his wife.
In the end, they are happy and have a lot of children around them.
The book's not bad, but we think that it lacks description. The emotional scenes were pretty bland.
Our favourite part was when David ran away and his aunt decided willingly to take care of him. The moment his stepfather and his sister were in front of Betsey's house, we think that her reaction was priceless, as she shouted, 'Don't ride on my grass!' It was very funny.
The scary bits were the fact that David went through so much. His stepfather beat him often, he started working while being ten years old and his mother and spouse died. He had it very tough.
We learnt that we should never give up, and that there's always light at the end of the tunnel.
We recommend this book to everyone, just not kids younger than 10.

Aleksandra Bajić, Milica Jovanović and Aleksandra Ilijin, VIII1

Sunday 10 November 2019

Follow the Little Prince

I shared a short presentation of the book with my Class 4 students. Then we watched an animated film and compared it with the presentation. I checked their understanding and we talked a bit more about the characters and the important things in our life.

Before the next lesson I set up different activity stations around the classroom, and prepared the material for each station. The students grouped around the tasks which I explained, and added that they would move from one station to the next  when they finished their task:
- do the crossword;

- illustrate one of the characters;

- make a fox origami bookmark by watching the tutorial;

- draw your favourite scene on a jigsaw puzzle template;

- play an online flashcard game with the key words from the book;

- draw the Little Prince and one of the symbols of our town.

Judging by their comments, I think my students enjoyed this kind of work.