'The Mess We Made' is a beautifully illustrated book that explores the impact of ocean pollution and how rubbish and plastic can harm our marine life. The story has rhythmic words that are repeated and built up to a crescendo with the message to take action and stop pollution.
This activity pack includes activities to support this text, which allow students to discuss, comprehend, make connections and understand the importance of caring for the ocean and marine life. There are various activities that can be adapted and cater for Pre- Year 6.
Included in this pack:
*Visualise activity- where students read some text from the story and draw what they think it represents.
*Comparing activity- students make connections and compare what it would be like to swim in the ocean as it's described at the beginning of the story and the end of the story.
*Tiered vocabulary scaffold- as a class or independently, students identify words from the story and place them in tiers based on their complexity.
*Cause and Effect activity card and sentence strips- students can use the sentence strips to create complex sentences by adding a conjunction. Students can identify independent and dependent clauses.
*Suffix activity- students choose a base word card and see if they can cretae new words using the suffixes -s, -ed, -ing.
*Create a poster activity card. This card allows the students to persuade the viewer to care for our ocean environment.
*Give your opinion activity card and Sentence Starters- students explore persuasive concepts such as an opinion and give reasons for their own opinion about rubbish in the ocean. They can use the sentence starters to write sentences with their opinion and reasons.
*Modal Sentence Strips- students use the quantifying modal words to change the impact of the sentence. This allows students to explore persuasive devices to have a greater impact on the reader.
*Respect the Ocean writing template- students can use their persuasive knowledge to write paragraphs about why and how we should protect and respect the ocean.
*'The Mess We Made' Colouring sheet- students can colour the whole sheet or colour the things that would be harmful to marine life if they are in the ocean.
*World Map- students can research and label where the Ocean Garbage Patches are in the world. This could initiate a more detailed project about Ocean Garbage Patches.
Australian Curriculum content descriptions
Understand that the purposes texts serve shape their structure in predictable ways (ACELA1447)
Listen to, recite and perform poems, chants, rhymes and songs, imitating and inventing sound patterns including alliteration and rhyme (ACELT1585)
Describe some differences between imaginative informative and persuasive texts (ACELY1658)
Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning about key events, ideas and information in texts that they listen to, view and read by drawing on growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features (ACELY1660)
Understand that different types of texts have identifiable text structures and language features that help the text serve its purpose (ACELA1463)
Draw connections between personal experiences and the worlds of texts, and share responses with others (ACELT1596)
Understand the use of vocabulary about familiar and new topics and experiment with and begin to make conscious choices of vocabulary to suit audience and purpose (ACELA1470)
Identify the audience of imaginative, informative and persuasive texts (ACELY1668)
Understand that a clause is a unit of grammar usually containing a subject and a verb and that these need to be in agreement (ACELA1481)
Learn extended and technical vocabulary and ways of expressing opinion including modal verbs and adverbs (ACELA1484)
Identify the point of view in a text and suggest alternative points of view (ACELY1675)
Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts demonstrating increasing control over text structures and language features and selecting print,and multimodal elements appropriate to the audience and purpose (ACELY1682)