Cartoons

To finish off our half term, and our reading of Mouse, Bird, Snake, Wolf, we drew some cartoons of the story. Here are some of 4G's:

Here's some more:

A big thank you to the author, David Almond, and the illustrator, Dave McKean for their wonderful book, so full of so many things! Thank you to them too for following our progress and encouraging us:

@Simon_Gregg This is such a wonderful project!
— David Almond (@davidjalmond) February 6, 2015

@Simon_Gregg @davidjalmond Too good. I'm out of a job.
— Dave McKean (@DaveMcKean) February 6, 2015

Our... Mice, Birds, Snakes, Wolves

We've been collecting leaves, sticks, berries, stones... and yesterday and today we've been making some creatures with them with Miss Whittaker.

Here's a slideshow:

Movements, music and incantations for animating creatures

In 4G we've put our music and words for bringing creatures to life together with some movements. Here they are:

Mouse

Bird

Snake

Wolf

Questions

We finished reading Mouse, Bird, Snake, Wolf today. We thought about some of the questions that come to mind after reading the book:

 We chose one "big question" to discuss:

and sat in a circle to discuss our ideas about this. If you'd like to share any thoughts, we'd love to read your comment!

Little Ben in the tree

Little Ben has just watch the wolf that Harry and Sue made eat them up. Now he's sitting in the tree he climbed. We imagined what might be going through his head:

More here.

My Wolf

My Wolf

During my snow day at home I made a wolf out of pine cones, feathers, sticks and a carrot. I like him very much because he is not scary but very cute.

Creation Incantations

We have been inspired by our Power of Reading book 'Mouse Bird Snake Wolf'
by David Almond, to create some magical creation dances and spells. 

We listened to the music and developed our dances first.

Then we composed and recorded the narration for our spells.

Here are our videos for you to enjoy.

Music and words for animal creation

In music with Mr Davidson 4G have been creating music for Mouse, Bird, Snake, Wolf - the moment when the animals are created. We went on to begin the movements that should go with the music, and the words to be said. Here below is the music and the words we've created in our groups:

Mouse

Bird

 

Snake

Wolf

Tweets

Mr Gregg mentioned our work on Mouse, Bird, Snake, Wolf on Twitter - and heard back from author David Almond and illustrator Dave McKean:

@Simon_Gregg @DaveMcKean Brilliant! Hi to Y4!
— David Almond (@davidjalmond) January 19, 2015

.You snooze now, @DaveMcKean & @davidjalmond - and we'll get on with filling in a few more gaps.
— Simon Gregg (@Simon_Gregg) January 19, 2015

Recently Mr Gregg tweeted again, and got another reply from David Almond:

@Simon_Gregg hi Simon. Thank you. This is totally wonderful! Hello to the kids. David
— David Almond (@davidjalmond) January 28, 2015

Meanwhile the gods...

Up in the clouds

the gods

were relaxing

 and complementing each other:

Make a wolf?

Mouse, Bird, Snake, Wolf

But now the children want to make a wolf...

We had already discussed whether it was a good idea for the children to create new animals:

Today, we discussed whether we thought making a wolf was a good idea and why. We had different ideas:

We talked about our reasons more, and then made a Conscience Alley to give Sue and Harry our advice:

What would you advise, and why? If you were in the discussion, have you thought of anything else to add?

Filling Holes

In David Almond and Dave McKean's Mouse, Bird, Snake, Wolf the children see holes in the world the gods have made.  And they can see things in those holes, things that take shape in their minds. Little Ben sees a hole and a creature gradually takes shape in his mind - a mouse!

We imagined what we might see in holes left in creation. We made the images of these creatures appear inside our heads, and created pictures in the style of Dave McKean.

We, the gods...

 The gods have - almost - finished with creation. Everyone should know how good their work is, in case they haven't noticed. Let an announcement, a proclamation, be made!