We read ‘The Owl Who Was Afraid Of The Dark’
and ‘The Aardvark Who Wasn’t Sure’.
Both of these books are written by
the great children’s author
Jill Tomlinson.
We talked about how these stories,
making connections
between the two stories.
We asked ourselves:
How are these books the same
and how they are different?
Julia is going to begin
by introducing both books
and talking about
how they are the same.
This is how the stories are the same:
The main characters
are both young animals
that live with their parent(s).
The Owl lives with his Mum and Dad
and the Aardvark lives with his Mum.
They are loved and well minded
by the grown ups in their lives.
They are both nocturnal.
They both have to look out for ‘danger’.
They are both very inquisitive
especially about food.
Both stories follow a pattern.
The same kind of thing happens
in every chapter
over…
and over again.
They meet another character
and talk to them,
asking them questions
and finding things out.
But this is not tedious
because each of these
characters are different
and interesting.
Also there are differences
in the pattern each time.
Different things get said.
Funny things get said.
Avatar Kila will tell you a little about
how the stories are different
The stories are different because
one story is about an aardvark
and the other is an owl.
The owl is a carnivore and the
aardvark is an insectivore.
The aardvark and his Mum
are nomads. The owl family
stay put.
Plop the Owl wants to be a day bird.
As the title of the book says,
he is afraid of the dark
and doesn’t want to go hunting
with his Mum or Dad.
This is the problem
that has to be solved
in his story
Pim the Aardvark is different
He is looking forward
to going hunting at night
with his Mum.
His ‘problem’ is that he is
a brand new, baby aardvark
and he doesn’t know anything.
He isn’t sure at all about
the life of an aardvark
or the world around him.
Luckily both stories are the same
in that they both have happy ending.
To finish:
In the chapter called ‘The Rotten Digger’
in the ‘The Aardvark Who Wasn’t Sure’,
Pim tries his hands
(or should that be his claws) at digging.
Here is a video of an aardvark digging
from Arkive.org, a website of animal videos.
If you would like to comment click on ‘Continue Reading’ below
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Voki’s are fantastic, I love them. Well done Room 6. Hope to see lots more. 🙂
Thanks Sue. We are on a learning curve with the Vokis trying to make them more and more like ourselves. Now if we could get the voice recording right and not have to depend on the adult voices on ‘speech to text’, that would be great. I’ll be experimenting at the weekend.
It was funny when every time Pim said he was an aardvark the animal he was talking to said an odd what. It was like when people thought the owl was a firework or a roly poly pudding.
Yes Jack, there is humour in both stories. Things are said, which made the class laugh, when we read it. So that is another thing that is the same in both stories. Both stories have a pattern.
The same joke keeps coming up in each chapter. In ‘The Owl Who Was Afraid of The Dark’ it is that people think the owl falling from his branch is something else, like a firework, a thunderbolt, a shooting star, or a roly poly pudding.
In ‘The Aardvark Who Wasn’t Sure’ the joke that turned up in each chapter was that each time Pim introduced himself, people didn’t hear what he said. So when he said he was an aardvark, they all asked ‘An odd what?’
I liked that each time the jokes turned up the class laughed. The more the joke was repeated, the more the class enjoyed it. We were expecting the joke each time. After a couple of chapters, we could predict it was coming, but it still made us laugh.
Both the books and the activity sound interesting, and it seems as if the students came up with some pretty good answers! Voki also sounds like an interesting tool.
Thank you L. Our efforts in class are a ‘work in progress’ at the moment, but we are improving week by week as they gain in confidence. Your encouragement is very helpful. Thank you.
Neat… actually really neat!
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