Great Book

This book has been a great catalyst for things. (Tomorrow is a Great Word) How could such a great book be buried on our bookshelf in the resource room and even worse be out of print now. Have contacted publisher, maybe they might reprint if they get enough good feedback about it. Going to try to contact the author also, she might have loads of copies of it still.

The children initially have found it really hard trying to do the roles in just a pair. A couple of times they've wanted to give up but we have refocussed and worked through it. Taking us much longer to get things posted as they are putting a lot more thought into their roles. The word detectives have found it quite hard as they know they are trying to help others understand what words and phrases mean, not just themselves. They have to be clearer. The illustrators really thought they might have an easy time of it, but they have seen there is much more thought having to go into depicting a scene.

Found we needed to do some more work on what an earthquake was like that is on that scale and it has spun off into some homework tasks and going to other sites. Found a really neat site which had an earthquake simulator which the children could use. Being in Rotorua we experience little earthquakes all the time, but to get to grips with an earthquake of the magnitude of the one in the story was difficult. A fine line between showing the children and scaring them senseless. Hopefully I have got it right. It has really reinforced to me how great developing the wiki is as I could just add the links to the site. I was also able to post a new question for them to answer right away. I am able to do things at the moment I think of it, the children can go on at a time that suits them also if they are going in at home.