Year 4 enjoy reading stories from other cultures

In English Year 4 have been reading different stories from South America. We are enjoying discussing and writing our own versions of ‘The Wings of the Butterfly’ and ‘The Rainbow Snake’, which are both based in rainforest settings. The children have been working hard to understand story structure, in order to identify the opening, build up, climax and resolution sections. This encouraged them to think carefully about the purpose of these parts and the effect they have on the reader. Next, we used these sections to help us organise our own story writing into clear paragraphs.

In the Rainbow Snake story, the birds of Venezuela were all grey until they found a brightly coloured snake that they were able to take colours from. However, this led to lots of fighting from the birds about who would get which colours. The only bird not to join in the squabbling was the wise cormorant bird, who waited patiently. He was happy to take only the small amount of white that was left over. His comment that, “It is not the colours that make the bird, but his thoughts and actions,” provoked lots of interesting discussion about the meaning behind the story. When asked to summarise the story in just ten words, the children had to think carefully about the main message. Here are some of the children’s thoughtful ideas:

It’s not about your looks it’s your thoughts and personality- Sophie

The message is to appreciate and not to be greedy- Iwan

It’s a message to be happy with what you have- Olivia

The message is to be satisfied with what you already have- William F

It doesn’t matter what you look like, you’re special already- Tillie

Thank you for helping the children to learn their poems so well for the House Poetry Competition. We were really impressed with the performances in Year 4!