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Year 6 Writing Hook – Mulan
On Monday, Year 6 had an exciting and unexpected visitor—a general from Hua Mulan’s army (played by Mr. Brown). The students were captivated as a letter from Mulan herself was read aloud, informing them that their enlistment in her army was required.
Before they could join, however, they needed to prove their readiness by completing an initial round of training. The challenges tested their physical strength, sword-wielding skills, ability to send and decipher secret codes, and, of course, their fitness.
After successfully completing all the tasks, it was declared that each of them had passed and could proudly join Mulan’s army!
This week, we have been working on learning our imitation text, centred around Hua Mulan, where we are building the foundation for writing our own biographies. Here is Lidi's recount of the event:
After watching the movie Mulan, a film about a girl joining the army, even though it was banned in the 4th century in China, our teachers in year 6 decided on hosting a Mulan themed activity. The whole year group went to the sports field and got to practice skills that a soldier would. Mr Payn, prepared swords and spears, we had to “run for our lives” whilst listening to his instructions. The second task was the beep test with Ms Moxom. This challenge was all about pushing ourselves physically to the limit through running continuously at a high speed. Similarly, when Ms O’Keeffe directed us next to a wall to practice wall-sits and build muscle. This exercise was especially difficult, because while we were doing the wall sits, we had to pass a weighted ball to each other. We learnt that as soldiers you not only need to be tough, but also very clever as we experienced using our memory and communication skills with Ms McDonald. These outside activities gave us a great start of the week.
Lidi Kutas 6 Copper
Here are some other reflections from the students:
"With Ms. O'Keeffe we were leaning on a wall with our legs at exactly 90 degrees. It was hard and I'm glad I made it!" Jack 6 Lava
" On Monday we this super fun activity to get xxx intro to our new topic. Mr. Payn helped us to learn to fight, Ms. O'Keeffe made us sit to practise our strength! This was all related to Mulan." Olivia 6 Lava
" I really enjoyed the activities on Monday, especially Mr. Payn's and Ms. O'Keeffe's. It was a hook for our new topic related to Mulan." Nuala 6 Lava
Lesley McDonald
Year 6 Teacher