The Vanishing Cats Part 2

Chapter 2, The Backstory
"Sit down, everyone. As you have discovered my secret, I shall tell you the whole story," said Captain.
"But," burst out Shamrock.
"No 'buts' Shamrock, do you or do you not want to listen to the story?"
"I do" replied Shamrock.
"Alright then, I will" he said, taking a deep breath.

Captain's Backstory
"Varjak and Holly got closer after defeating Sally Bones. That is it. But in a few months, they had me. Varjak thought that I could keep the Way alive by teaching it to me. I got nearly all of them right in just one week, but I didn't know how to do the last skill, Insight. I tried it week after week, month after month, but I kept failing, and failing, and failing. But, Holly Bones struck. She was just as deadly as Sally Bones, if not a lot stronger. She also had her hench-cats so it was impossible to strike her. Varjak, Holly and I fled, because otherwise they would kill us, and of course, they cared about me. We stayed hidden for a few days, but eventually, they found us and we had no choice but to fight. Holly and Varjak fought hard, but got badly injured trying to protect me. So when Holly Bones came to finish them off, flung on to her and started gnawing her and protected my parents using 6 of the Skills. After hours of fighting, they fled and I carried my parents into the same park where they first met. Gladly, they survived. And now, I know the all the Skills. But I am not happy. Holly Bones will strike again and avenge for her mother. You must stop her. But don't kill her, she is important. Try to make her see her wrongdoing, before it is too late"

4G's Feline Assmbly

4G had their assembly today - with a Varjak Paw theme!

Here's the presentation:


 And here are some photos of us (thank you Miss Ash!) -

Varjak Is Calm

What you need to do:

Writing exciting sentences - cats in the city

We're preparing for some Varjak Paw-style writing in Year 4. The cats are prowling through the city, hungry, fearful of the dangerous gangs of cats, fearful of the Vanishings. The look, listen, sniff the air...

To help us with this writing we've done a number of things.

Firstly, we've wandered through Marseilles a little. This has helped us to imagine the scene in more detail.

We've also looked at using exciting sentences to make our writing more varied and interesting.

Look at these two sentences:

Can you see the pattern?

Sorrow, graffiti, darkness - why was the city so cruel?
Rubbishy, smelly, old - what type of disgusting place is this?

They're called 3 bad - (dash) question sentences.They start with three bad nouns or adjectives - are followed by a dash - and then a question. (Of course, this can be varied.)

Have a look at some of our practice Emotion word, (comma) sentences and 3 bad - (dash) question sentences, plus some of the images we used:



Once again, thanks to Alan Peat for his taxonomy of exciting sentences!

In the city

Distant cars

Anxious

Railings

Low window

With metal bars

Awareness

Lonely neighbourhood

Trashed street

Graffiti

Mysterious

Blue neon sign

Scared

Aware

Stairs

A ramp

Footsteps

Creep out

Shades of grey

Drunks

Fighting and yelling

Curious

Smelly                         

Dirty

Buildings

Criminals

Old posters

Soggy

Eerie

Ruined

Ads

Empty

Abandoned

Deserted

Class wordscape inspired by Varjak Paw and  Night Walk in Marseilles

Lost cat news

Reading Varjak Paw, we've discovered a lot of cats have gone missing. In response, we've created our own news stories about missing cats.

Click here to read 4B's news.

Click here to read 4G's news.

Some "lost cat" posters 4G created before writing the news:

The Vanishing Cats Part 1

Chapter 1, The Return 

Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat

I woke up. What was that noise? I started following the sound, it sounded like a cat was going to Shamrock's room. When I arrived at his door, I saw a black and white cat with only one eye. She was edging near Shamrock, who was sound asleep. Her claws were out, and she looked like she was going to rip Shamrock's ears and tail off.
"Sally Bones?" I whispered, in disbelief.
It couldn't be, Varjak Paw had defeated her long ago, making her fall to her death.
The cat heard me, swore and then, before I could catch her, she ran silently ran away, accidently knocking Shamrock's vase on to the ground.
"I'll be back, Varjak Paw, I'll be back!"
Crash!
"Sally Bones!" I yelled at the top of my voice, which I nearly never did. "She's back! She was never dead!"
Every cat who heard started panicking manically.
"What will happen to us?"
"I don't know!"
'Smart idea, Jade, smart idea' I thought. 'Totally clever of you to make everyone panic'
Captain, our leader rushed in.
"What are you talking about, Jade?" he asked. "Sally Bones is dead"
"But I saw her!" I protested. "She was black and what, with only one eye!"
"Sally Bones' daughter, Holly Bones, is back" he said, eyes flashing. "
You must stop her. She will avenge Sally Bones, and Varjak's closest relative right now, is me, I am the son of Varjak Paw and Holly"

A night walk in Marseilles

What might it have felt like to be the cat Varjak Paw as he walked around town at night?

We could get some idea by having a stroll round Marseilles at night time (open this in Chrome):

promenadenocturne.withgoogle.com

Here are some of us exploring:

Varjak has been hearing...

...a lot of cats have been just vanishing!

Lost Cats

Rozenn and Maia:Varjak's journey

Press the space bar.

Varjak meets his first "Dog"

Here are some of our poems:



You can see them in more detail on our poem blog.

Pablo and Fernando's Varjak Journey

Varjak's Journey By Alicia and Penny

This is our Scratch project for Varjak Paw:

Varjak's Journey by Niamh and Sanika

Amelia and Cristina... Varjak has an adventure

Varjak's Amazing Adventure - Ryan and Mimi

Advait and Aksh

Mapping Varjak's world

We've now read up to chapter 8 of Varjak Paw, and we've seen him begin to explore the Outside.

We've begun to map his new world:



You'll be seeing more of these great maps - watch this space!

Varjak meets a "dog"

Varjak's looking for a dog. But what is a dog? This must be one...

What kind of dog was this?                           - our 2 Ad sentences -

Tobias	The dog was a weird, giant monster, with round, rubber paws.
Clara	The dog was a huge, terrible monster with a shiny, metal body.
Maia	The dog was a nasty, fearsome creature, with glaring, meanless eyes.
Fernando	The dog was a huge creature, with a long space under the black thing.
Amelia	The dog was a huge, loud, red monster, with sharp, metal teeth.
Ryan	The dog was a frightening, terrible monster, with big, gloomy eyes
Maëlle	The dog was a ginormous, metal beast with strange, big ears.
Penelope	The dog was a terrifying, metal beast, with enormous, yellow, glowing eyes.
Claudia	The dog was a frightening, formidable beast, with red and white glassy eyes.
Cristina	The dog was a enormous, steam beast, with bright yellow eyes.
Gustavo	The dog was a tremendous, terrifying, brute, with devilish eyes of pure iron.
Rozenn	The dog was a striking, roaring monster who didn't stop for anyone.
Jacques	The dog was a fierce, evil demon, with whirling, rubber legs.
Mimi	The dog was a monstrous, abominable beast, with staring, blank eyes.
Pablo	The fearsome dog was a vivid, loud animal with transparent, gloomy eyes.
Alicia	The dog was a fearsome, strange beast, with a glass, transparent forehead.

How did Varjak react?                           - our Emotion, sentences -

Maia	Gloomy, he walked along the dirty puddles.
Amelia	Varjak was frightened, upset and scared
Ryan	Terrified, Varjak ran away.
Cristina	Afraid, Varjak sprung away as far as he could.
Rozenn	Selfishly, he turned away. It would disappoint the Elder Paw.
Mimi	Petrified, Varjak froze on the spot, knowing that he could not reason with this beast.
Pablo	Baffled, Varjak stood with amazement in front of the wall.
Alicia	Terrified, Varjak turned and ran far.

Varjak Paw - crisis!

We're reading S.F. Said's brilliant novel Varjak Paw at the moment, and we've got up to chapter five. A lot has gone wrong for Varjak and he might be tempted to despair.

His family have turned against him, the cats' owner, the Contessa, appears to have died, a strange man has arrived with two even stranger black cats.

And now Varjak is outside, facing the two black cats with his grandfather, the Elder Paw. His grandfather is telling him to climb the wall, to go and get help.

We've been trying to understand the Varjak's feelings as he faces the biggest crisis in his life...

Thank you to Alan Peat and Year 4 at Leigh St Peter's for the exciting sentence idea!