English with Miss Amy

Hope you're all having a lovely weekend! ☀️ We visited a beautiful garden with a fantastic established wisteria.
Do you remember my lesson on Wisteria Hysteria? It was such a fun way to develop creative writing skills while exploring one of the most beautiful flowers of the season. Although wisteria is stunning, its powerful woody vines are notorious for damaging buildings. I loved the contrast and creativity that came through in our writing.
There’s lots happening at the moment! Speaking classes with Miss Lisa are starting this week and summer courses are just around the corner. This year, lessons will look a little different as I'll be incorporating newspaper articles to encourage more discussion, analysis, and critical thinking skills.
If you'd like to join us, send me a message! I’d love to hear from you! 🌸

SHOULD FILM ADAPTATIONS STAY LOYAL TO THE BOOK?
Did you know Harry Potter will be made into a new TV series? Using the newspaper article, students are debating one of my favourite topics: Are books always better than the film?

My students are busy writing a balanced argument, developing analytical thinking and learning strong vocabulary such as faithful to, reinterpret and modernise. We have had quite the debate so far!

Do you want to join these types of lessons? Tuesday 8pm or Saturday 3:20pm - limited spaces remaining!

I had to share this student's brilliant vocabulary book!
Each lesson, they choose to collect the new words and phrases in their own little vocabulary book. What fantastic initiative!

It's exam week for lots of you this week - good luck!
I know you can do it! You are all stars x

Fabulous metaphors this evening! Adding similes and metaphors to your sentences will really show off your creativity and make your sentences more fun. We described Mr Twit's bristly face and foul habits. Perfect for fun writing lesson with P2-3 students! Spaces available, let me know if you'd like to have a go!

Wisteria hysteria - great work! ❤

A great week with my advanced students looking at building tone and atmosphere in our descriptive writing. The wisteria appeared to be beautiful and light. Looking closely, the woody vines are actually destructive and this plant can cause a lot of problems to homes. It was great to see how the energy shifted through the paragraphs.

These students were excited to write haiku's about the wisteria as well! ❤

If we are going to describe the wisteria, we'd better learn some ambitious vocabulary!
In this piece of writing, my students had to write a three paragraph description that changes tone. We start by noticing the stunning, fragile leaves but end with the violent woody vines causing destruction.
We looked at pathetic fallacy and we even added fantastic oxymorons such as 'gentle violence' and similes such as 'like a painting brought to life'. The blooms don't last for long, so we could say the wisteria is a 'fleeting visitor' or a 'tourist'!
Very impressive!

SPACES for advanced class: Tuesday 6:45pm, Tuesday 8pm, Saturday 3:20pm.

Great writing!
The final task of our Esio Trot project is to write from Alfie's perspective. We wrote a three-paragaph diary entry for one of the main events in the story.

We looked at ambitious vocabulary we learnt throughout the story as well as figurative language like similies, metaphors and personificaiton. We showed off our direct speech writing skills and added some ISPACED sentence starters. The skills we've been learning recently have really strengthened our writing 💪

SPACE AVAILABLE
Tuesday 5:30
Saturday 4:25

As we move further into advanced writing, our focus is on adding contrast. This might look like the chill of cold water against warm sunlight, or the balance between beauty and tension.

While walking through my village this week I was inspired by the wisteria creeping along the cottages. The lilac petals are stunning, yet they grow from thick, woody vines that demand constant pruning and care. They can even threaten the brickwork!

I would love my advanced writers to capture this contrast in their descriptive writing.

Join us on Tuesday evening or Saturday 3:40pm. Send me a message for more information!

This week in class: how can Charlie be both rich and poor at the same time?

When we first met him, we talked about how little money he has. Even though Charlie is poor in material things, he is rich in other ways. He has a loving, happy family and a positive outlook on life.

This helped us explore contrasting ideas and use them in our own sentences to explain our thinking.

Great work everyone!