The Gruffalo

Brief Summary of Story



The little mouse wanted to take a walk in the forest. The other animals in the forest wanted to prey on the little mouse so they invited it to their own habitats. The little mouse was very intelligent and told them he was going to visit the Gruffalo, an imaginary creature. The little mouse described the Gruffalo to be a very scary and horrible creature that would eat them up. The animals were all very afraid of the Gruffalo and quickly retreated.



Unfortunately, the little mouse really met the Gruffalo and it wanted to eat the little mouse up. So the mouse decided to tell the Gruffalo that all the animals in the forest are afraid of it. The Gruffalo just have to take a walk in the forest with the little mouse in order to see that. The animals in the forest were afraid of the Gruffalo and all run to hide when they saw it, making it seem as if they were afraid of the little mouse. The mouse managed to outwit the Gruffalo and trick it into running away.



Lesson Idea



It is not the survival of the physically fittest anymore, but the survival of the most intelligent.
Physical size does not matter as much as brain size. =P




The Dot

part(i)
why do you think vashti asked the boy to sign on the paper?
why do you think the teacher framed up vashti's work on the wall?

part (ii)
if you are vashti, will you like your teacher?
if you are the teacher, do you think that vashti caould draw?
if you were the teacher, what would you say when you see the dot on the paper?
if you were vashti's mother, friend, (refer to above)
if you were vashti, what would you say when the teacher asked you to draw something on the paper?

part (iii)
have you ever felt like you couldn't do something? what did you do?
how did people encourage you when you couldn't do something, like vashti?



1) Have you ever come across any difficulties in any subjects?
2) How did you use to face these difficulties?
3) After reading The Dot, will you try to overcome these difficulties?

Relections help to organise our thoughts and link what we have learnt to what we already know. It helps to consolidate what we have learnt.



Writing on weblogs helps to keep our posts organised and may be neater, especially for people who are generally messy. It also helps us to generate more ideas in a way as many of us can type faster than we can write, and this helps to keep us from losing our train of thoughts.



Weblogs allows us to follow up on things that cannot be completed during school curriculum, due to time constraints. This will be helpful, provided all pupils have access to the internet at home, as pupils can continue with their learning on the very same day instead of waiting till the next day, where they might have forgotten some of the things covered the previous day. Teachers can also solicit feedback from pupils, especially those who are very shy in class.

The teacher, however, need to set some ground rules before they start using the weblog as a form of communication and a platform to teach, as some pupils may post up unkind comments of their friends' input.

Therefore much thought and planning has to be put in before teachers decide to embark on the use of such technology.