Introduction
This term, we have started looking at Shackleton's Journey which is a detailed visual narrative of Shackleton's epic journey to Antarctica written by William Grill. The book takes the academic and historical information behind the expedition and reinterprets it for a young audience.The book will teach children about character development, emotional response and changes of setting in a narrative which references a true historic event. The narrative structure is carefully crafted to offer young readers a good model for their own story planning and descriptive writing.
Going through this book will help all the children with their English as well as other cross-curricular links, including:
- Geography - It will help children to understand maps.
- History - They will also be able to research what else was happening at this time in history.
- Science - Compare different environments, and the way animals and humans adapt to extreme conditions.
This has also linked in with the Year 3-6 English homework over the last two weeks, as they had to research glaciers and write an information booklet about them.
Creating CVs and Personal Statements
In small groups, the children were given a crew member that they had to research and then write a fact file about them. Then the Year 3 and 4s had to write a CV for their crew member. While the Year 5 and 6s had to write a personal statement as why they should be considered for Ernest Shackleton's expedition to Antarctica and what skills they would bring to the crew.
Then we had the chance to show off all the information we had learnt in a job interview with Ernest Shackleton himself (played by Mr.Grant) and his second-in-command Frank Wild (played by Mrs.McGrath) who were asking them questions about the crew member and why they would be a good crew member for the ship. All the candidates did extremely well and were successful in getting a job on the ship.
