- Story
- Blast off, Year 4
- Issue 6, 2019
Mr Kessel's Bush Tucker Garden
Learning resource
Outcomes
Worksheet: Verbs, adverbs and adverb groups
Understanding EN2-4A
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, sympathy, empathy, understanding, friendship and courage. 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 meanings and use them to increase student vocabulary with this Interesting Words worksheet. For example: warbled, gleam, accent, gaze, tucker, native, limb, sensation, admire, glimpse and TSM word of the month: fortitude.
Engaging personally EN2-2A
Theme: At its most basic level a theme may be regarded as a message or even the moral of a text. Ask students to write a paragraph about what they think the moral of the story is. Students could use a Thinking about Themes worksheet to record their ideas. Further explore the English Textual Concept ‘Theme’.
Write/Discuss moments in students’ lives that evoke for them the same feeling(s) as Mr Kessel feels, when he stares at his garden, ‘…with a gleam in his eye and crooked smile on his face.’ Brainstorm what those feelings could be, now that they know more about Mr Kessel’s life. For example, ‘I feel … when I am … because …’.
Connecting EN2-11D
Text-To-World connections occur when we relate the text with what we already know about the world.
Text-to-World: How do the ideas in this text relate to the larger world—past, present and future? Students complete the following statements using a Text-to-World Connections worksheet activity:
- What I just read makes me think about (event from the past) because …
- What I just read makes me think about (event from today related to my own community, nation or world) because …
- What I just read makes me wonder about the future because …
Discuss as a class or use a Think, Pair, Share worksheet to record responses.
Teaching Strategy explained: Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self, Text-to-World Rationale.
Engaging critically EN2-2A & EN2-7B
Complete a Fact and Opinion worksheet to help students identify the information contained in ‘Mr Kessel’s Bush Tucker Garden’. Ask students to consider how Matty and Josh felt about Mr Kessel without knowing the facts, which became evident once they get to know him personally. Discuss fear of the unknown. Locate and list the factual statements about Mr Kessel’s and the boys’ opinions, as portrayed in the story. Fact and opinion charts can also be used to help students understand the different positions represented in texts and look more closely at author purpose and whether facts are fairly presented or if opinions are more prominent and why.
Describe Mr Kessel using this Show Your Thinking® Character Traits worksheet. Show Your Thinking® is a framework developed to guide students as they develop and practice their critical thinking skills when writing short constructed responses. Students list Mr Kessel’s characteristics and support their inferences and ideas using evidence from the text.
Experimenting EN2-10C
Write a persuasive letter to the local council to organise more neighbourly pursuits within the community. Brainstorm neighbourly pursuits as a class, for example: community gardens, ‘Be a Good Neighbour Day’, ‘BBQ With Your Neighbour Day’, etc. Why is being a good neighbour important? How does a sense of community benefit citizens? Students could organise argument ideas using a Persuasion Map worksheet to help structure and support their writing endeavours.
Write a diamante poem where a stranger/neighbour turns into a friend. Students could use this Diamante Poem worksheet to write their poems.
Research bush tucker mentioned in the story: lemon myrtle, macadamia, Illawarra plum, bush tomato, rosella flowers, saltbush, hibiscus and pepper leaf. Have students present their bush tucker as a short speech or collect and present information as PowerPoint slides. Also read the short article, ‘Will Wonders Never Cease?: Bush Tukka Bunya’, by Zoë Disher, on page 27 of Blast Off issue 6 (July) 2019.
Animate ‘Mr Kessel’s Bush Tucker Garden’ using Comic Life, or draw a simple film strip using this Story Board worksheet.
Reflecting EN2-12E
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.
Further reading
Resources
ABC Behind the News: Bush Food activities and research links
Australian Museum: Bush Tucker—Museum in a Box
Harvard Thinking Routines