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  • Countdown, Year 3
  • Issue 7, 2019

Tiddalik the Frog

    Learning resource

    Outcomes

    Worksheet: Tiddalik the Frog character

    Understanding          EN2-4A

    Create a detailed story map of ‘Tiddalik the Frog’ using this scaffolded Mapping your Story worksheet.

    Complete a Three Facts and a Fib thinking routine to ascertain student understanding. This thinking routine gives students the chance to develop their skills in narrowing choices.

    Engaging personally EN2-2A

    Write about how students would make Tiddalik laugh. In other retellings a platypus makes Tiddalik laugh, because he has never seen one before. Is Nabunum (the eel) a funny choice? Ask students to justify their choice and how it is funnier than an eel.

    Complete a Responding to Literature worksheet to encourage students’ personal responses to the play.

    Connecting    EN2-11D

    Text-to-Text connections occur when we make connections between other texts in relation to the text we are reading.

    Text-to-Text: How do the ideas in this text remind you of another text (story, book, movie, song, etc.)? Complete one of the following statements:

    • What I just read reminds me of (story/book/movie/song) because …
    • The ideas in this text are similar to the ideas in … because …
    • The ideas in this text are different than the ideas in … because …

    Students complete a Text-to-Text Connections worksheet and can discuss as a class.

    Teaching Strategy explained: Text-to-Text, Text-to-Self, Text-to-World Rationale.

    Engaging critically     EN2-2A & EN2-7B

    Complete a PMI chart. Encourage students to use their PMI chart to highlight three elements (in three different colours or use coloured post-it notes) within the narrative that are positive, negative and interesting:

    • Plus/Positive: Good/Positive experiences, themes, messages, events and happenings in the text.
    • Minus/Negative: Events in the text that are negative/bad experiences in the text, things that go wrong etc.
    • Interesting: Anything that appeals to the student; questions, feelings and emotions that arise, morals, messages and connections that resonate with the students.

    Experimenting           EN2-10C

    Write another version or retelling of ‘Tiddalik the Frog’ as a narrative or a reader’s theatre script. Students could use a Narrative Idea Pyramid worksheet to organise their ideas before writing. Option to perform in front of the class. A sample narrative can be found at Early Learning Services.

    Create a film strip of ‘Tiddalik the Frog’ using this Story Board worksheet. Option to adapt into a podcast using Audacity.

    Write a procedure to help make Tiddalik laugh. Have students think of jokes, pranks and other ways to make Tiddalik laugh. Students could outline the steps using one of these Flowcharts for Sequencing graphic organisers.

    Perform the play using puppets.

    Adapt the play into a limerick about a frog named Tiddalik. Students could use one of these Limerick worksheets to help them write their poems.

    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 of 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

    English Textual Concepts

    Resources

    Harvard Thinking Routines

    Think from The Middle: Strategy Tool Box

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