Connecting to prior knowledge

Learning Intention: Students will be able to discuss the setting of the story.

Read the pictures in Yirruwa Yirrilikenuma-langwa to build vocabulary and connections:

Look at the pictures. What do we learn about the setting of the story from the pictures? Is it a city? Is it like our homes? Have you ever been to the bush? What sort of things did you do when you were camping or visiting the bush? What can we learn from the style of illustrations? Who might have drawn these pictures? Are they like pictures we have seen in other books?

Create a wonder wall, where students ‘wonderings’ about the story and Aboriginal people are recorded. For example: ‘I wonder if they are looking for food’. As the unit progresses add ‘answers’ to the wonderings.

Learning Intention: Students will predict from the pictures what the story will be about.

Listen to the story in Andilyakwa language. Ask the children to predict what the story is going to be about. Children to sit knee-to-knee and tell their partner their prediction.
Read the story in English. Children return to their partner and discuss similarities and differences in their predictions.
(ACELA1453)   (ACELY1660)   (EN1-10C)

 

Exploring the text in context of our community, school and ‘me’

Learning Intention: Students will make connections between the book and their place.

Read the story and commence a list of the places and animals the children in the text see as they went walkabout. Take children on a walk around the school ask them to work with a partner to discuss and list animals and places they see.

Students use Popplet lite and take photos on iPads.

View YouTube clip for instructions on how to create popplets.

Return to class and model creating a Same/Different diagram using the two lists. This can be done as a mind map using popplet, in a concrete form using hoops and drawn pictures or on a worksheet using the template below.

 Same/Different
Yirruwa Yirrilikenuma-langwa/
When We Went Walkabout 
Both  Our School
 

 

Yirruwa Yirrilikenuma-langwa/
When We Went Walkabout  
Both  My Place 
 

 

(ACELT1584)   (EN1-10C)

 

Rich assessment task

Learning Intention: Students will be able to demonstrate text-to-self connections they have made to Yirruwa Yirrilikenuma-langwa.

Students complete a Same/Different activity. This can be as a venn diagram or as a table (shown above). Ideally for this age group the diagram will be on an A3 page to give space for drawing and writing. Students could also create the Same/Different using popplet. In one circle children draw or write things they see around their homes, in the center they list or draw things the same as the book and in the right hand space they list or draw things featured in the book. Use the teacher rubric (PDF, 111KB) to assess.

Responding to the text

Learning Intention: Students will demonstrate understanding of the main ideas in the text.

Students will create a soundscape to go with their favourite page of Yirruwa Yirilikenuma-langwa When We Go Walkabout. 

Look at a page of the book with the class and talk about what sounds might be heard if the page could talk to us. Ask children to choose an instrument and show how they would make the sound e.g. a kangaroo hopping. Explain to the students that they will work in pairs to create a soundscape for a page from the book. When they are happy with their soundscape they can take a photo of the chosen page, read the page and record their soundscape using the book creator app. Share soundscapes with the class through the interactive whiteboard.

Resources required: percussion instruments, copies of the book, iPads for recording their work.
(ACELT1582)   (EN1-11D)

 

Exploring plot, character, setting and theme

Learning Intention: Students will explore family connections through making text-to-text connections.

Read Savanna Dreams by Lolla Stewart.
Discuss the story and ask: Where is it set? What are the family doing together? Who is in the family? What animals do they see?

Remind students of our focus book, Yirruwa Yirrilikenuma-langwa When We Go Walkabout.

Commence a class semantic grid (PDF, 110KB). You will add to this when you read stories to the students from the list of recommended texts or others that include grandparents.

As a class complete a same/different comparing the two texts. Students draw or write their connections on sticky labels and add them to a large venn diagram.
(ACELT1583)   (EN1-11D)

Learning Intention: Students will consider the role of grandparents as teachers and compare their grandparents with the Indigenous grandparents.

Read the back cover which tells that the author and illustrator learned about the bush from their Nannas.

Read Sam’s Bush Journey by Sally Morgan to further build understanding of sharing of culture and knowledge through generations. After reading you might add this book to the semantic grid.

View the clip and discuss what the Nanna is teaching her grandson and talk about their ‘place’.
(ACELT1582)   (EN1-11D)

 

Rich assessment task

Learning Intention: Students make text-to-self connections.

Students draw their grandmother and write/scribe things they do with and have learned from their grandmothers or someone special in their families. (Ensure that all students have someone in mind to think about as they do this activity, it could be an aunty, mother or special friend.) For example: “In the book Nanna taught about the bush, my Nanna taught me how to plant vegetables.”

Assess using the rubric (PDF, 111KB).
(ACELT1582)   (EN1-10C)

Examining text structure and organisation

Learning Intention: Students will consider how the illustrations add to the details of the story.

Display examples of Aboriginal art. Search Google images for ‘Aboriginal Art’ and you will find many examples and charts of symbols used.

Discuss the style of each picture in Yirrruwa Yirrilikenuma-langwa When We Go Walkabout. Prompting questions could be: What is the same on each page? Why are the animals large? How does the author show us where the animals live? What is the effect of the use of the ellipsis?

View the illustrator’s work. What features do you notice that the illustrator uses in his art?

View examples of Aboriginal art and symbols used. Explain that in Aboriginal culture stories are passed on to each generation through art.

Action: Students will experiment with painting with twigs and using aboriginal symbols.
(ACELA1453)   (EN1-8B)

Examining grammar and vocabulary

Learning Intention: Students play with grammar by identifying action verbs within the story.

Read Yirrruwa Yirrilikenuma-langwa When We Go Walkabout. As you read ask the children to stop you by standing up when they hear a word that tells what an animal or person is doing. List the action verbs. This can be done in a small group or with the whole class.
In small groups, playcharades’ (PDF, 97KB). Students have the word cards in front of them and take turns to draw a card and act out the verb.
(ACELA1452)   (EN1-9B)

Learning Intention: Students will use their knowledge of letters and the sounds they make to decode words.

In a small shared reading group session where each child can see a copy of a book or the whiteboard screen, talk about the names of the animals in the story. Model how to ‘chunk’ the Andilyakwa words and together try and sound out the words. Make a chart for the class matching the English and Andilyakwa words. Explain that there are many different Aboriginal languages depending on where people come from. View the ABC Splash website for more words. Add animal names to your list. Have fun trying to read the words and model how to sound out and chunk the words to read them.
(ACELA1457)   (ACELA1458)   (EN1-5A)

Learning Intention: Students sequence words into sentences from the story.

Have students cut out the words (PDF, 103KB) and sequence them into a sentence that makes sense. To differentiate the task students can:

  1. Match the words to the complete sentence.
  2. Create one sentence by reading the words and creating a sentence that makes sense.
  3. Create 2 sentences by reading the words and creating sentences that makes sense.

(ACELA1451)   (EN1-9B)



Rich assessment task

Learning Intention: Students will use action verbs within a simple sentence.

Students will create texts with supporting images, incorporating features of indigenous illustrations.
Use of action verbs within a simple sentence.

Create texts with supporting images, incorporating features of indigenous illustrations.

Using some of the techniques used by the illustrator Alfred Lalara, create a painting about an animal near your place. Add a caption stating what the animal is doing. e.g. I see my pet dog barking at me. (Highlight the action verb by making it bold or a different font or colour).
(ACELA1453)   (EN1-8B)   (ACELA1452)   (EN1-9B)

Learning Intention: Students will create oral stories based on the book.

‘Story Prop Play Centre’.
Set up a play centre in the classroom and provide a prop box for students to play and re-create the story. The setting will be created using bits of bark, fabric and other natural materials. Provide toys and figurines of different Australian animals. In pairs or groups of three, the students play with the centre, recreating the story and telling it to each other.
(ACELT1586)   (ENe-1A)

Learning Intention: Students will read and act out sections of the story with expression by participating in a Readers’ Theatre.
As a whole class create a readers’ theater based on Yirruwa Yirrlikenuma-langwa When We Go Walkabout.

A narrator and actors are chosen for each character/animal. The narrator reads the page as the actors ‘act out’ the scene. Soundscapes can be played to complement the production.
(ACELT1586)   (ENe-1A)

Learning Intention: Students will create a group innovation on the text about their school.

Teacher will model writing using the repetitive phrase ‘When we go walkabout what do we see?’ Example answer: At the oval we see something staring at us. Plover. At the basketball we see something swooping at us. Magpie.

In pairs illustrate a page of the innovated text and staple together as a group book. This could also be done by adding the students’ illustrations to the book creator app and having the children read the text to make a recording.
(ACELT1586)   (ENe-1A)

 

Rich assessment task

Students will create a story map based on the story after they have rehearsed the sequence through the oral activities. This will consist of drawings and labels. Students will use fine line markers so they can add detail to their maps. They will then add colour to enhance their work.

See Assessment rubric (PDF, 111KB).
(ACELT1586)   (ENe-1A)