- Story
- Touchdown, Year 6
- Issue 6, 2019
Dance of the Lascaux Pony
Learning resource
Outcomes
Worksheet: Exploring commas
Understanding EN3-3A
Conduct a Step Inside Visible Thinking Routine. This routine is designed to help students look at characters and events differently by exploring different viewpoints. Three core questions guide students in this routine:
- What can the person or thing perceive?
- What might the person or thing know about or believe?
- What might the person or thing care about?
The story evokes feelings of fear, reverence, insight, judgement, and courage to name a few. Brainstorm perceptions from the story. Option to use as story titles. Students could record their responses on one of these Step Inside worksheets.
Find three interesting words from the story. Research their meaning and use them to increase student vocabulary in this Interesting Words Graphic Organiser worksheet. For example, aurochs, averted, grotto, ochres and sinew. The Touchdown word of the month, ‘oblivious’, could also be included.
Engaging personally EN3-5B & EN3-8D
Complete this Sensory Chart Graphic Organiser worksheet, to respond to the text, using imagery and descriptive language directly from the text. For example, what did Rouan see? ‘How Lascaux danced, and pranced, how she bore him across the grassland.’ Students could also illustrate/transform their most appealing textual imagery into visual images or artworks.
Write a personal retelling or summary of the events in the story using this Retell Summary worksheet. Add a personal comment about whether Rouan’s transformation into the ‘Mark-maker’ was predictable and/or interesting. Did Rouan call up the spirits of animals to help him? Encourage students to use their own opinion or point of view to allow for personal interpretations of the text.
Connecting EN3-8D
Text-to-self connections occur when we make connections between personal experiences and the text.
Text-to-Self: Have a class discussion on how do the ideas in this text relate to students’ own lives, ideas and experiences. Ask students to consider:
- What I just read reminds me of the time when I …
- I agree with/understand what I just read because in my own life …
- I don’t agree with what I just read because in my own life …
Students complete a Text-to-Self Connections worksheet and discuss as a class.
Teaching Strategy explained: Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self, Text-to-World Rationale.
Engaging critically EN3-7B
Discuss the sentence, ‘I saw them. I felt their bodies. I smelled and heard them … in my head and in my heart.’ What is Sheryl Gwyther telling us about Rouan? How has she made the reader feel about Roaun (empathy, sympathy, fear, etc.)? What role did the elder play in the story? How do we know what happens next? What is the message within the story? Use the following Think, Pair, Share Visible Thinking Routine to assist students to articulate their thoughts. Students could use one of these Think, Pair, Share worksheets.
The routine involves posing questions (above) to students, asking them to take a few minutes of thinking time and then turning to a nearby student to share their thoughts. This routine encourages students to think about something, such as a problem, question or topic, and then articulate their thoughts. The Think Pair Share routine promotes understanding through active reasoning and explanation because students are listening to and sharing ideas, Think Pair Share encourages students to understand multiple perspectives.
Write a letter to author Sheryl Gwyther using the Writing a Letter to an Author guidelines and worksheets and the Narrative Praise Question Polish Peer-Review worksheet as a scaffold. Encourage students to highlight three elements within the narrative that they would Praise, Question and Polish:
- Praise: What I like about the author’s writing style or ideas.
- Questions: For the author to remove any confusion.
- Polish: Things to improve, I would change, I wish that …, I wonder if …, I couldn’t believe …
Support: Write a postcard
Experimenting EN3-7C
Write a diary entry for George, Simon, Jacques or Marcel, about the day they made their amazing secret discovery. Read the article on page 24 of Touchdown 6 2019, ‘Treasure Underground’, for more detailed information about these brave (no longer) young men.
Design a poster/advertisement to encourage tourists to visit ‘Lascaux II’, see ‘Treasure Underground’, Touchdown 6 (page 24), for detailed information about this famous discovery.
Create an animation of ‘Dance of the Lascaux Pony’ using Vyond.
Write a narrative beginning with any sentence directly from the text. For example, ‘This is the place.’ The elder pointed his hand at a bare space of rock.
Complete this Narrative Idea Pyramid worksheet to organise ideas and plan writing.
Reflecting EN3-9E
Conduct an I used to think ... But now I think … routine. This routine helps students to reflect on their thinking about a topic or issue and explore how and why that thinking has changed. It can be useful in consolidating new learning as students identify their new understandings, opinions, and beliefs. Record responses on this I Used to Think … Now I Think … worksheet.
Exit Slips are a formative assessment that can be used to quickly check for understanding. The teacher poses one or two questions in the last couple minutes of class and asks student to fill out an ‘exit slip’ (e.g. on an index card) to ascertain student thinking and understanding. Here are Instructions on filling out an Exit Slip and two Exit Slip worksheets.