Here We Are - Oliver Jeffers
51dRZvjKWsL._SL500_

ENGLISH

HASS

SCIENCE

ART

GEOGRAPHY

HUMANITITES AND SOCIAL SCIENCE SKILLS

SCIENCE UNDERSTANDING

SCIENCE AS A HUMAN ENDEAVOUR

VISUAL ARTS

MUSIC

DRAMA

LITERACY

LANGUAGE

ACHASSK031:

The natural, managed and constructed features of places, their location on a pictorial map, how they may change over time (e.g. erosion, revegetated areas, planted crops, new buildings) and how they can be cared for

The location of the equator and the northern and southern hemispheres, including the poles

ACHASSK032

How weather (e.g. rainfall, temperature, sunshine, wind) and seasons vary between places, and the terms used to describe them

WAHASS13

Reflect on current understanding of a topic

BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE (ACSSU211)

Living things live in different places where their needs are met

EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE (ACSSU019)

Observable changes occur in the sky and landscape

ACSHE022

People use science in their daily lives, including when caring for their environment and living things

ACAVAR109

Personal opinions, feelings and ideas about artwork they view and make

ACAVAM106

Exploration of, and experimentation with, the visual art elements of shape, colour, line, space and texture

ACAVAM108

Use of visual art elements and techniques, to create 2D and 3D artwork, that communicate an idea to an audience

ACTIVITY:
During this activity, students will be given an abundance of natural materials that they will be using to create a 3D Diorama of "their world". They will be given time to brainstorm, and to think about the things they love, their favourite places, people, animals. They can then bring all of these things together to create an abstract scene of "their world" using natural materials, pens, pencils, paint, stamps, tissue paper, collaging, images, etc to bring in to life.

ACAMUM081

Practise of simple songs and their own and others’ compositions, to perform for different audiences

ACADRM027

Use of dramatic action to sequence events to communicate an idea or message

LITERATURE

(ACELA1449)
Recognise that different types of punctuation, including full stops, question marks and exclamation marks, signal sentences that make statements, ask questions, express emotion or give commands

(ACELT1582)
Discuss characters and events in a range of literary texts and share personal responses to these texts, making connections with students' own experiences

(ACELT1584)
Discuss features of plot, character and setting in different types of literature and explore some features of characters in different texts

(ACELT1586)
Recreate texts imaginatively using drawing, writing, performance and digital forms of communication

(ACELA1451) Identify the parts of a simple sentence that represent ‘What’s happening?’, ‘What state is being described?’, ‘Who or what is involved?’ and the surrounding circumstances

(ACELA1459) Understand that a letter can represent more than one sound and that a syllable must contain a vowel sound

(ACELY1659)
Read decodable and predictable texts using developing phrasing, fluency, contextual, semantic, grammatical and phonic knowledge and emerging text processing strategies, for example prediction, monitoring meaning and re-reading

(ACELY1662)
Re-read student’s own texts and discuss possible changes to improve meaning, spelling and punctuation

(ACELY1657)
Make short presentations using some introduced text structures and language, for example opening statements

ACTIVITY:
To show how landscape can change over the years, show students an image of Perth/Fremantle from the past, and then a comparison image from current time. Use these images to guide a learning discussion on how we can make sure the earth stays green, and ask students to discuss if they have any ideas on how to balance the amount of new buildings with new plant life. Show students before and after images of certain settings such as before buildings, deforestation, climate change, oceans 20 years ago vs now, cities in the past vs now, etc. Ask students to spot the differences and prompt light discussion around why that might be.

ACTIVITY:
After reading through the book, the students will be placed in small groups and within each group each student will chose a place to explore the weather in. They will need to research using an ICT 'symbaloo' tool on which the teacher has set up a variety of web pages for them to explore the different climates and weathers. They will create a poster as a group after their individual research to depict a variety of climates/places and the weather that accompanies them. These posters will be pinned up around the room.

ACTIVITY:
Students are asked to choose an animal from the animal page in the story and draw the landscape that their chosen animal would live in. Using books and other resources provided by the educator the students can explore these habitats to add to their drawing.

ACTIVITY:
Go on a short bush walk somewhere in the local area (a park, lake, or reserve), use an observational chart to record any wildlife seen, as well as the native flora around the area. Encourage students to observe where they are, in the Australian bush, on Nyoongar land. Prompt discussions about what animals they might find in this habitat, what they eat, do they think these animals stay here all year round. Use their observational charts they can record, draw and jot down anything they discover so that it can be revisited in class later. Then read through the story again and see how many animals and plants they can see throughout it.

ACTIVITY:
Using the planet pages in the story as inspiration, the students are given a task of creating a moon journal that they will use to record the moon phases over four weeks during the term. They will record the moon pattern and phases that they can observe each night and then engage in daily class discussions around where the moon is at, what it is called, why the moon changes and the effects of the earth that has. They will also be encouraged to see if they can see the major constellations that can be seen in WA - The Southern Cross, and take note to see if that moves position throughout the month

ACTIVITY:
Students are given the responsibility of caring for a small garden/sanctuary in the school. They will be given the opportunity to plant native seedlings and will then need to use their knowledge about plant life to water them and also create somewhere where native wildlife can come to be safe.
For example:

  • Birdbaths
  • Bird boxes
  • Native plants that offer food or nectar to wildlife
  • Rocks for sunbathing lizards
  • Hollow logs for animals to hide or nest

This activity will also be aimed to deepen the students understanding on how important it is to keep planting trees and plants for the planet, and also help them become capable of caring for the natural world around them.

ACTIVITY:
Using the 'daytime' scene from the story, in pairs, the students will create dramatic scene to depict one of the actions taking place. There are many options shown in the book, but they can also create their own ideas using activities they engage in during their days such as specific sports, games. Through dramatic performance, the students can communicate their activity to the group using their bodies, props and sound.

ACTIVITY:
To explore the visual arts element of texture, the students will create a 'space' scene of planets/starts/space or a depiction on planet Earth. They will be given materials that can create texture on their artworks such as scrunched up paper, stamps, fabrics, cardboard, thick paint, wool, silver foil. These will be put around the classroom with discussions to follow about the planet and where we live. Around their artworks they will also need to explore different textural words that they can think of that would be present on the planet throughout landscapes or in space such as pointy, soft, hard, jagged, slippery, wet etc.

ACTIVITY:
Chose a setting from the book, such as ocean, polar regions, mountains, bushland, forest and as a class brainstorm ideas to create a song about that setting/landscape, each child will be able to have input. Teacher will create a chord sequence on the guitar to accompany the words, and together they will practice it, using their brainstorm to create the verse and words.

ACTIVITY:
After creating artworks that relate to the book, the students will take part in a gallery walk so that they can view and reflect upon their classmates work. They will then be encouraged to express to a partner what they felt when looking at their classmates 'worlds' and 'textural installation'. Did they learn anything new about their friends from looking a their creations? How did they make them feel? What did they think about them? Then have a discussion in groups and they can each share something they liked or admired from one of the pieces.

ACTIVITY:
An excursion to Scitech Planetarium in Perth could be organised to deepen the students understanding of the sky and planets.

ACTIVITY:
A reflection period on this book will be beneficial for the students so that they can reflect on the important messages portrayed throughout the story. This story is about kindness, hope, caring for the Earth and places an emphasis on not being alone in the world. Have the students reflect on their understanding of the messages in the story. Then engage in a think pair share with a partner to discuss and share ideas and reflections.

ACTIVITY:
Discover the north and south poles on the globe, work out where they are situated in relation to us in Perth, and embark on a small research task to discover the living conditions that are apparent in the poles, which animals lives there, In the story, sound time looking at the pages that show cold landscapes (mountains and icebergs) and use those images as discussion prompts. Have discussions about the weather conditions in these places, snow, ice, wind, frozen oceans.

ACTIVITY:
After reflecting on the topics discussed in the book, students are encouraged to think about who in their life they can count on for advice, who will care for them, who they trust, who they love. They will create a stencil of their hand and decorate it using coloured pencils or pens. On each finger they will then write the name of a person they though of in their reflection.

ACTIVITY:
Students use coloured paper and pens to create a list of their favourite things on this planet using the correct punctuation. They then can write a sentence that requires an exclamation mark such as one of their favourite things on the earth. The students can write the question prompts on their paper as well to use more punctuations such as:

  • What do you love about earth?
  • Favourite thing!
  • I love...

ACTIVITY:
Go through the book with the children sitting on the mat and point out various punctuations such as full stops, commas, capital letters, exclamation marks. Point to each one and ask the class to say what it is called and what it means (EG, full stop - end of sentence, comma - pause, capital letter - start of sentence/name). After going through and focusing on select punctuation, the educator would write up some sentences from the book on the white board with some punctuation errors and ask the class to fix the problems.

ACTIVITY:
Teacher chooses the sounds ‘A’ and goes through the book in the style of a modelled reading session, using the sounding out strategy, with the focus on this singular letter and the sounds that it can create. Throughout the book the teacher stops at the words with the letter 'a' in them and sounds them out highlighting how it can sound different in words.
For example:

  • D 'a' y
  • D 'a' rk
  • Sh 'a' pes
  • T 'a'lk

Teacher uses clear think aloud statements to assist in the decoding of each word and to develop their students understanding of the different sounds that the letter 'a' can make.

ACTIVITY:
Retell the main scenes, or events from the story as a class and then each child can create a page that they would like to add into the book, a new idea or just more information about one scene/topic
EG:

  • Which animals are endangered (draw/write a list)
  • More information on the planets/moon/stars
  • A page on the poles, animals, ice
  • What is happening in the ocean
  • Who can I best ask for advice so I can help care for the planet and be kind

These pages can then be reviewed by the class and explained by each child to their group, showing where in the book their page would go, why they chose that topic etc.

ACTIVITY:
After retelling/recreating some of the main events from the story, students have a small group discussion (teacher on standby for prompting) and then create a small digital poster using ICT tools such as explain everything, canva, or book creator, of a plan to care for the environment within the school, such as collecting rubbish, watering the plants/trees, recycling ideas, simple things they can do at home. Using the ICT tools, they can insert images, draw, write or add videos in.

ACTIVITY:
Students are given an A4 sheet of paper with questions on them.
Question ideas:

  • Have you ever thought about the themes in this book?
  • How can we be kinder to our planet?
  • Describe one of the pages in the story, can you relate to it?
  • What is the main message from this story?
  • Have you ever seen any of the different landscapes shown in this book?

ACTIVITY:
Create a poster as a class discussing the main message portrayed throughout this story/plot (care for the planet, be kind, use time for good). Pin up on the wall and then each student is given a cloud cut out on which they will write a solution to this problem/message. They can write how they care for the planet and others that inhabit the earth with them, what can be done to protect it etc. These clouds are then pinned up around the main poster for the class to see and examine.

ACTIVITY:
This book contains many words to describe the earth. Have the students create a list of the words that they would like to analyse and understand better, then create a dictionary poster to pin on the wall as a class called ‘Earth Words’. As a class, they will decode and analyse these words and write their own definitions to broaden their knowledge of these new words in a simple way.


ACTIVITY:
Students create a letter to send off to the Author of this story - Oliver Jeffers. Students will be prompted to ask any questions they have about the book, and then tell him how they show their kindness to the earth. The students then reread their letters with the teacher and discuss what can be improved such as, punctuation, spelling and structure. These can then be edited by the student and sent off to the author.

ACTIVITY:
Teacher chooses sentences to use to question the students on:
“People come in many shapes, sizes and colours”

  • What can we see on this page?
  • What do all of these people have in common?
    • What can we see on this page that relates to the sentence?
      “When the sun is out it’s daytime and we do stuff”
  • What are some activities we can do in the daytime?
  • What can we see here on this page?
  • Are the people having fun?

ACTIVITY:
Each child chooses a setting/place on the earth (desert, sea, mountains, forest). Create a small list of information relating to the landscape that will be presented to a small group. Teacher should meet with each student to discuss and help them to structure their information in a presentation format such as an introductory sentence, body and concluding sentence. They will be encouraged to use vocabulary from the book to extend their word knowledge.

ACTIVITY: Using the page in the book that shows nighttime and daytime, ask students to recreate this using a location of their choice. They must show the same place, but how it would look in the night/dark, and in the day/light. They can use mixed media and elements of visual arts such as shapes, lines, colour and positive and negative space to depict the differences.

ACTIVITY: A simpler version of this activity would be to just create a word wall with all the words that are new to describe the earth. This can be used for future lessons and as a source of information for the students to come back to over the coming weeks. The words can be talked about, explored and in turn broaden their semantic knowledge and vocabulary.