Map to Australian Curriculum - Year 2

Australian Curriculum Strands

Meets Standard

The Frog’s Princess Links to the Australian Curriculum and Elaborations

Language

Understand that spoken, visual and written forms of language are different modes of communication with different features and their use varies according to the audience, purpose, context and cultural background (ACELA1460 - Scootle )

Suggested activities relating to identifying the audience, discussing the purpose of the text and exploring the similarities and differences in the culture and time period.

In addition, focusing specifically on how characters greet each other in the game (and relating to the time period) versus how people greet each other today.

Understand that language varies when people take on different roles in social and classroom interactions and how the use of key interpersonal language resources varies depending on context (ACELA1461 - Scootle )

Suggested activities include the roles of different members of hierarchy in a kingdom. Prompting players to identify the roles and responsibilities of royalty, guards and others.

Other activities can be based on formality and informalities such as language we use when we are in different situations. These can be related to certain parts of the book when comparing how a queen or princess speak and address each other compared to an immature Francis.

Identify language that can be used for appreciating texts and the qualities of people and things (ACELA1462 - Scootle )

Frog’s Princess puts the player in several situations where they are asked to express a reaction or emotion to certain situations, in addition to, reading the reactions and responses of characters in different emotional states.

The game also puts players in moral dilemmas, for instance, Francis’s desire to turn back into a human at all costs, not empathising with the Princess’s responsibilities or burdens. Players are constantly exploring what’s right and wrong or fair and unfair.  

See list of ethical discussions in Joy Everafter website – Girls should not; violence against women; war; punishment; what makes a person great.

Vocabulary is used to construct characters in this setting, particularly identifying nouns (Princess, Queen, and Sire) and adding adjectives to describe their emotions.

Understand that different types of texts have identifiable text structures and language features that help the text serve its purpose (ACELA1463 - Scootle )

Text structure is unique as it is a script based format or dialogue framed. In addition to the unique text structure from typical narratives, language features suit the time period and setting.

Understand how texts are made cohesive through language features, including word associations, synonyms, and antonyms (ACELA1464 - Scootle )

Suggested activities can be mapping exercises that associate words with characters or settings.

Recognise that capital letters signal proper nouns and commas are used to separate items in lists (ACELA1465 - Scootle )

Several spelling, punctuation and grammar activities can be used to identify and break down sentences which contain commas to separate different points within a sentence in the game.

Know some features of text organisation including page and screen layouts, alphabetical order, and different types of diagrams, for example timelines (ACELA1466 - Scootle )

Explicit

Frog’s Princess includes a navigation menu which allows players to choose scenes and chapters, points-of-view storylines and different reaction choices to dialogue.

Understand that simple connections can be made between ideas by using a compound sentence with two or more clauses usually linked by a coordinating conjunction (ACELA1467 - Scootle )

Suggested activities include identifying conjunctions in dialogue and how they piece a sentence together.

Additionally, using the hearing impaired option where certain conjunctions are left out can be used as a tool to compare sentences with and without these words. These are noun phrases, not full sentences, which can be utilised to compare sentences.

Understand that nouns represent people, places, concrete objects and abstract concepts; that there are three types of nouns: common, proper and pronouns; and that noun groups/phrases can be expanded using articles and adjectives (ACELA1468 - Scootle )

The game features several instances where players are exposed to nouns and different noun descriptions.

Suggested activities can include listing or highlighting nouns in a scene or chapter that relate to people, places and things. In addition to discussing the different types of nouns used in the story.

Identify visual representations of characters’ actions, reactions, speech and thought processes in narratives, and consider how these images add to or contradict or multiply the meaning of accompanying words (ACELA1469 - Scootle )

Frog’s Princess is an interactive storybook which incorporates illustrations and animations to convey messages such as character looks, dialogue and reactions. The images serve to support comprehension when progressing through the story whilst adding an interactive element which visually shows different reaction options. Players will need to interpret the character images and reactions to appropriately respond. Dialogue also adds to the images, as students are relating what is being said to the animations in the game.

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 - Scootle )

New terminology and vocabulary is bound to be met at level 2, specifically relating to vocabulary and language features used to match the setting of the story. Students will draw on familiarities from known words to solve new words. With the support of the read-aloud function, students will also have the opportunity to focus more on comprehension rather than fluency (understanding the word in context rather than just trying to decode without meaning)

Orally manipulate more complex sounds in spoken words through knowledge of blending and segmenting sounds, phoneme deletion and substitution in combination with use of letters in reading and writing (ACELA1474 - Scootle )

With the support of the read-aloud function, students will be exposed to new vocabulary and the correct way to pronounce the word – this will support students with exposure to new words and using these words appropriately when speaking and writing.

Build morphemic word families using knowledge of prefixes and suffixes (ACELA1472 - Scootle )

Suggested activities can include searching for, identifying and listing different prefixes and suffixes. Using these word lists, teachers and students can build understandings of how an affix changes a word.

Use knowledge of letter patterns and morphemes to read and write high-frequency words and words whose spelling is not predictable from their sounds (ACELA1823 - Scootle )

Reading and listening to the story allows for multiple exposures to high-frequency words with correct pronunciation.

Following the story allows the opportunity for students to listen to words that they may have spelt or pronounced differently – providing opportunity to correct misconceptions in spelling.

Use most letter-sound matches including vowel digraphs, less common long vowel patterns, letter clusters and silent letters when reading and writing words of one or more syllable (ACELA1824 - Scootle )

Suggested activities could include the opportunity to find words with silent letters, such as word hunts, followed by explicit instruction or deeper investigation prompted by a teacher.

Understand that a sound can be represented by various letter combinations (ACELA1825 - Scootle )

Similar to other vocabulary and spelling related strands, suggested activities such as word hunts, listing and identifying specific word properties that are prompted by a teacher after a mini-lesson would offer opportunities to focus on word studies.

(e.g. if a topic focus in spelling was silent letters in words, during independent reading, teachers could have students progress through the story and try to find words with silent letters)

Literature

Discuss how depictions of characters in print, sound and images reflect the contexts in which they were created (ACELT1587 - Scootle )

Suggested activities may include exploring character’s appearances within Frog’s Princess and making connections about how they look (and how they were created by the author and illustrator) and how it reflects their characteristics and personality.

For example, the difference in looks between the sisters showing their different attributes, or the way Lady Lorelei looks to depict her as the villain.

Compare opinions about characters, events and settings in and between texts (ACELT1589 - Scootle )

Suggested activities include choosing characters from other books and stories and comparing/contrasting them. This can be extended to settings and plots – how the medieval times were depicted in Frog’s Princess and in other texts.

Identify aspects of different types of literary texts that entertain, and give reasons for personal preferences (ACELT1590 - Scootle )

Suggested tasks may include describing and reflecting how Frog’s Princess entertains students as readers and how specifically it entertains them as individuals (as opposed to texts that inform or persuade).

These tasks create the reader’s profile of an emerging reader – for example, a student may begin to identify that medieval times and fantasy genres are what they love to read.

Discuss the characters and settings of different texts and explore how language is used to present these features in different ways (ACELT1591 - Scootle )

Suggested activities and tasks may include, comparing and contrasting Frog’s Princess with another mentor text, making connections between how each text describes different settings and characters.

e.g. How the princesses were described by Iron Henry to Prince Francis (intelligent, bold, true princess) compared to how Harry Potter, Hermione and Ron are described – comparing the language used between each.

Literacy

Discuss different texts on a similar topic, identifying similarities and differences between the texts (ACELY1665 - Scootle )

Activities may include using mentor texts set in medieval times or with a fantasy genre to identify similarities and differences between two texts with similar themes.

For example:

Compare Frog’s Princess with the original fairy-tale, The Frog King & Iron Henry. 

What substantive changes were made to the story?  (Adding a witch, adding elder sisters, adding a battle and an injured princess) 

What main points were kept? (Prince turned into frog, golden ball in well, promise not kept, King enforcing promise, throw against wall, Iron Henry’s three iron bands)

Listen for specific purposes and information, including instructions, and extend students’ own and others' ideas in discussions (ACELY1666 - Scootle )

The read-aloud element of the interactive storybook encourages the development of listening skills, particularly for following the story, discovering pertinent information and remembering information for different parts of the storyline. This is especially relevant for remembering information between storylines.

Exercises on the website include character sheets where students complete the names, and (under the Knowledge category), questions and answers about the story

Use interaction skills including initiating topics, making positive statements and voicing disagreement in an appropriate manner, speaking clearly and varying tone, volume and pace appropriately (ACELY1789 - Scootle )

The interactive storybook allows players to choose reactions and change their responses in interactions – although it doesn’t change the way the story progresses, with support, parents and teachers can highlight decisions made and relate these interactions to real-life situations.

Suggested activities could be, using specific situations to role play how someone might react if a certain action was taken and if that interaction would be positive, negative or neutral. Extensions could be made to comparing interactions in the story’s time period versus the current time period.

Read less predictable texts with phrasing and fluency by combining contextual, semantic, grammatical and phonic knowledge using text processing strategies, for example monitoring meaning, predicting, rereading and self-correcting (ACELY1669 - Scootle )

The interactive storybook provides opportunities for players to monitor their reading by comparing to the read-aloud element. Furthermore, as players must click ‘next’ to progress, there is further opportunity to think about their reading, rather than being rushed or pushed to another scene without being ready to move on.

In addition, there are several opportunities for instructional support to focus on developing specific reading strategies. For example, reading after the narrator reads to ensure proper intonation and fluency – or before the narrator to self-monitor and self-correct any miscues. Furthermore, reading along with the narrator (chorus reading) allows for the development of fluency.

Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning and begin to analyse texts by drawing on growing knowledge of context, language and visual features and print and multimodal text structures (ACELY1670 - Scootle )

Whilst reading, students have multiple opportunities to use comprehension strategies to interpret and understand what is happening in the book. Depending on students’ abilities to actively use comprehension strategies whilst reading, a range of strategies can be used.

In addition to students developing their own comprehension strategies, with support, teachers can use the storybook to focus on specific comprehension strategies at various stages of the book.

e.g. making predictions before a student reads (or continues reading), provides tasks that asks students to actively make connections to themselves as they read or prompts students to activate their prior knowledge before reading.

See the Comprehension part of the Joy Everafter website.

Australian Curriculum

Meets Standard

Frog’s Princess

Analysing, synthesising and evaluating reasoning and procedures element

Identify reasoning used in choices or actions in specific situations

Using specific situations that Prince Francis and Princess Emma are involved in, particularly involving their different priorities, students can justify, explain and discuss why they believe each character made that choice or reacted in that way.

Identify alternative courses of action or possible conclusions when presented with new information

Suggested tasks can include students writing alternative paths from the storyline if a different decision was made. Students will then predict what could have happened if that choice was made instead.

Evaluate whether they have accomplished what they set out to achieve

Using specific situations within the story, teachers can present dilemmas and have students evaluate a character’s decision and whether it accomplished what they wanted to achieve.

e.g. Prince Francis’s attempts to turn back into a human which lead him to negatively impact relationships.

Reflecting on thinking and processes element

Use information from a previous experience to inform a new idea

The unique feature of reading the story from different perspectives allows players to draw on experience and information from different points-of-view to comprehend the story and make connections to the next scenes and chapters.

Australian Curriculum

Meets Standard

Frog’s Princess

Understand relationships

Identify ways to care for others, including ways of making and keeping friends

The story features several interactions that are positive, negative and neutral – throughout the journey, players will have exposure to how certain reactions and behaviours lead to making and keeping friends or pushing away potential friends. This is evident in the initial character development of Francis and how he treats others, particularly the Princess, and how he matures and changes his behaviour by the end of the story.

Australian Curriculum

Meets Standard

Frog’s Princess

Interacting and empathising with others

Express their own perspectives on familiar topics and texts, and identify the perspectives of others

Follow up activities can include reflecting on perspectives between the characters, analysing how each character sees the situation.

Using situations within the text can also create discussion around similar situations students have been in, providing opportunities to express each other’s perspectives.

e.g. The King under control may see the problem much differently from Prince Francis or Princess Emma.