Lesson video

Hi, my name is Miss Vincent, and I'm going to be teaching you today for this writing lesson.

We're going to be writing our opening for the film how to train your dragon today.

And this is the third of three lessons building on two previous lessons where we started off writing the opening.

And today we get to finish off writing our opening.

This is the really exciting part of the opening, where we finally see the dragons on the island of Berk, and we get to see what happens when the dragons come onto the island.

So I'm really excited to finish up our opening and let's get started off we go.

So this is our agenda for today.

We're going to start with a writing warmup, looking at time conjunctions then we're going to think about the final part of the opening scene and remind ourselves of what it's important that we really include.

We're going to move on to look at our steps for success.

And then finally, we get to write our sentences.

In this lesson, you'll need an exercise book or a piece of paper, you'll need a pencil or a pen, and you'll need to switch your thinking caps on and have your brains ready to focus and do some learning.

If there's anything that you need to go and get before you start the lesson, please pause the video now, run off and get it and come back and press play, off you go.

Okay, great, so hopefully we are ready to go.

So it's time for our writing warmup, like I mentioned, our writing warmup is about time conjunctions.

So I have a question for you.

What are time conjunctions? When do we use them? What do they look like? Can you think of any examples? Just have a moment, to think to yourself, and I'm going to do the same.

Can you say your answer out loud? What are time conjunctions? Let me tell you what I think they are or how I would explain what they are.

So time conjunctions are words or phrases, which are used to tell the reader when something is happening and often they can be at the start of sentences to order things in our writing to order events in our writing, but they might also be in the middle of our sentences as well.

Some examples of some time conjunctions are this morning, a few moments later, suddenly or endless days later.

And these are all time conjunctions that come at the beginning of sentences.

And that's why they've got a comma after the next, when we start a sentence with a time conjunction or a time phase, then we need to put a comma after it.

So as well as showing the order of events, time conjunctions are really good at showing the pace of a narrative for example.

So that means that it shows us how quickly something happens in the story because of course, something like suddenly is very different to hours later.

So it tells you a reader how long it takes for each thing to happen.

So I've got two different time conjunctions one of them is in the blink of an eye and the other one is later that day.

I want you to choose which of these time conjunctions shows something happening quickly.

I'm going to give you five seconds to think about it, and then I want you to point to your answer.

Five, four, three, two, one.

Which one shows something happening quickly in the blink of an eye shows something happening quickly.

Well done.

I'm going to show you two more and you need to choose, which of them shows something happening quickly? Is it seconds later or is it after lunch? Choosing in three, two, one, say it out loud.

Seconds later, well done.

Because after lunch might be while you're having lunch.

Okay? Which means it's probably about half an hour away, or it could be first thing in the morning.

And after lunch is a very long way away.

Whereas seconds later, we know that just a couple of seconds have passed and then something has happened.

So I thought of two there you can see on the screen two time conjunctions, that show something happening quickly, and I called them quick time conjunctions.

Can you think of any more that you use in your writing when you're trying to show something happening really quickly, I'd like you to pause the video and make the notes of as many quick time conjunctions as you can think of, remember something like, hours later or the next day, doesn't show that something's happening quickly.

So pause the video and have a go at coming up with lots of them off you go.

Okay, good effort.

I'm going to share with you some of the ones that I came up with, which I think are also quick time conjunctions.

So we had in the blink of an eye and seconds later, another one was suddenly, which is a very popular choice in a flash, as quick as a flash, before they knew it.

So that means that they didn't even have time to realise something was happening before they knew it.

And that one might be a good one for our sheep, because they didn't even realise that there was a dragon above before one of them got snatched up.

And then the final one that I thought of is a split second later, so that's even shorter than a second later.

Really well done, if you've got any of those or if you found some additional quick time conjunctions.

So now let's move on to reviewing and recapping the scene.

So we're going to think about the writing that we've already completed in previous lessons to describe the opening.

Then we'll think about which section we're going to write today and then finally, we're going to rewatch the film, focusing on the final part, thinking of as much detail as possible while we're watching the film.

So I'm going to read through the writing that we did together in previous lessons.

We've got two paragraphs because we wrote two different separate sections.

I'd like you to read along with me while I'm reading it out loud, you might to choose to read it out loud, or you might choose to just read it quietly in your head.

But I definitely like you to follow with your finger while I'm reading.

Right, three, two, one, let's go.

A thick blanket of eerie, silver mist hung in the ebony, midnight sky.

It floated just inches above the water and almost entirely covered the view of the island behind it.

In the distance colossal, looming watchtowers guarded a small rickety Viking settlement.

Amber fires glowed in their mouths as the raging sea crashed violently against the jagged rocks below.

On the hillside, white, fluffy sheep stood out like dots on a green canvas as they roamed freely on the wild island.

Sturdy, wooden huts huddled together on the craggy landscape and their warm, flickering lanterns glowed in the dark night.

Outside unsuspecting sheep grazed happily on the lush, green grass.

Really well done if you joined in.

So we've left it where the sheep don't suspect anything.

And today one of the sheep is going to get snatched up by a dragon and then we're going to see the dragon.

And finally, we're going to see Hiccup shutting the door and we'll know that dragons are the problem on that island.

Because when we watched the film, if you listen carefully, Hiccup says that, "We have pests here "that are not like other pests." And often when people refer to pets, they might think of insects, or they might think of rats and mice.

But here on this particular island, the pests are very different, pests are dragons, so very different.

Okay, so we're going to watch the film now.

We've written all the way up to the part where the sheep gets snatched from off the ground.

So when we get to that section, make sure that you're watching really carefully.

And you're thinking about how you might tell your reader about what happens, okay, let's watch.

This is Berk.

It's 12 days north of hopeless and a few degrees south of freezing to death.

It's located solidly on the Meridian of Misery.

My village in a word sturdy.

And it's been here for seven generations, but every single building is new.

We have fishing, hunting and a charming view of the sunsets.

The only problems are the pests You see most places have mice or mosquitoes.

We have dragons.

I hope you used the time wisely to think about how you're going to describe, these three events in the end of our opening.

So in previous lessons, we had to go coming up with lots of vocabulary to help us with our writing.

We thought about the sounds we could hear, we thought about what we could see in the setting as well.

And here are some of the things that we came up with and you might have some more ideas on your notes as well.

And I've had a go at thinking of different verbs and adverbs that we could use to describe the dragon and to describe the villagers.

So lots of precise vocabulary that we could use for example, we could say that the dragon swooped down skillfully, or we could say that it snatched the sheep quickly.

So the adverbs have to go really well with the verb, we can't say that it's snatched it slowly because the sheep would have had time to run away.

So thinking really carefully about precise vocabulary descended on the village, to descend means to come down.

So descending on the village means to come fly down into the village.

We could talk about the villagers as they fled to their huts fearfully, to fled is the past tense of to flee, which means to run away and they're full of fear, that's why it's fearfully.

They panicked instantly or they scattered frantically.

If you scatter something you could scatter some seeds and throw them around, so if people scattered, it means they run out in all directions and you can imagine them all running away from the dragon frantically.

So I'd like you to go and find your notes from previous lessons if you have some and if you don't have any I'd like you to copy down some ideas from the screen here.

And actually, if you have some notes, you could take some additional ideas that perhaps you don't have in your notes.

So in a moment, I'd like you to pause the video and do one or two things.

So to go and get your notes, if you have them.

And if you don't have any notes to copy down some notes as well.

So pause the video and do those things for me now, off you go? Okay, great, so hopefully we've all got some useful vocabulary that will help us when we come to writing our opening.

Now we're going to think about our steps for success.

So we're going to think really carefully about what we're going to try to include in our writing today.

As we've had in previous lessons, we've got our aim is to write at least one sentence for each of these three events.

So we want to tell our reader that a sheep was snatched by a mysterious creature.

At that point, we don't know what the creature is.

We just see the sheep flying off into the sky.

We want to tell the reader that there was chaos as everybody tried to flee.

When I used the word chaos I mean confusion and everybody's shouting and running, so it's chaotic means that there's a lot going on.

And then finally, we want to tell our reader, we want to reveal to our reader that the creatures that we saw snatch a sheep, that caused the chaos were dragons.

So in our writing today, we need to make sure that we're using those skills that we're always using to make our writing successful.

So we're doing our capital letter and full stop checks.

So for a full stop or whatever piece of punctuation we have at the end of our sentence.

We're using say, write and then read because we're making sure that we say our sentence out loud, we write it down and then we check that what we wrote is what we actually said in the first place.

And once we've done it, we can edit and improve.

So we can always make our sentences better, perhaps adding in an adjective or changing adverb to make it more precise.

Today we're going to aim just like in previous lessons to be really precise without adjective choices.

So when we describe the setting, we're going to choose really precise, describing words.

We're going to make sure that the verbs and the adverbs that we choose to describe the action are really precise and building on our warmup, we're going to use some time conjunctions to sequence and add detail of when things happened.

And we might want to use some of those quick time conjunctions.

It's just a tiny part of the clip and everything happens so quickly that we'll definitely be thinking of suddenly and in the blink of an eye and everything happening incredibly quickly.

Okay, time to write our sentences.

So we're going to take it in turns, it's going to be my turn to get to write.

And you're going to listen and watch carefully to try and get some ideas and to think about what you might do in your sentence, then it'll be your turn then it'll be my turn then it'll your turn.

And then we can read the whole thing that we've written from start to finish.

Okay, let's write.

Our first sentence is about the sheep being snatched really quickly.

So I want to start with a time conjunction that shows something's happening really quickly, and I'm going to go with, in a matter of seconds.

So let me put that sentence started down, so I need my capital letter in a matter of seconds comma in a matter of seconds what happened? In a matter of seconds the sheep was snatched.

Wasn't it from the ground.

And I'm going to add in an adjective to describe the sheep.

I'm going to go with innocent.

So in a matter of seconds, the innocent sheep was snatched from the ground.

In a matter of seconds, the innocent sheep was snatched from the ground.

And I'm going to add in an adverb to describe the way that it was snatched, remembering the adverbs and verbs go together.

And I'm going to use my plan to help me.

And I've got skillfully snatched down as a verb and adverb pairing, so the innocent sheep was skillfully snatched from the ground but we can tell the reader who did the snatching, although we want to keep the dragons a secret for now.

So I'm going to describe the creature as a mysterious beast.

So in a matter of seconds, the innocent sheep was skillfully snatched from the ground by a mysterious beast.

And I need my full stop at the end of my sentence.

So let me just read back over my sentence, in a matter of seconds comma the innocent sheep was skillfully snatched from the ground by a mysterious beast.

Okay, now I think I want to refer back to the sounds that we could hear.

And at this stage I could only hear the sound of the dragon's wings beating.

So I might start my sentence with that.

So only the sound of beating wings could be heard, and I might use a complex sentence and as complex sentence to talk about what happened at the same time, as we could hear the wings beating.

So only the sound of beating wings could be heard as the sheep disappeared.

So let me write that up.

So I need my capital letters to start my sentence.

Only the sound of beating wings could be heard as the sheep disappeared completely because we can't see it anymore.

Can we? It disappeared completely from where it stood moments before.

So I can tell the reader that just a few moments before there was a sheet there and then it was gone.

So let me just check that sentence.

Only the sound of beating wings could be heard as the sheet disappeared completely from where it stood moments before.

Okay, so I'm going to read the two sentences together to make sure they work.

In a matter of seconds, the innocent sheep was skillfully snatched from the ground by mysterious beast.

Only the sound of beating wings could be heard as the sheep disappeared completely from where it stood moments before.

Now it's your turn to write your sentence or two about the sheep being snatched from the ground.

Remember to try and include a quick time conjunction to show your reader that it's happening quickly and make precise verb and adverb choices to show the action.

So pause the video, write your sentence and press play when you're ready to continue.

For my next sentence, I'm going to combine my last two pictures together, and I'm going to put both sentences for those pictures on this screen.

So you might see on the page, a Mrs. Wordsmith word, a Mrs. Wordsmith word is the word commotion.

My turn your turn commotion, your turn.

Good job.

A commotion is when there's something chaotic happening.

And there's lots of things going on at once and probably not good things you can see in a Mrs. Wordsmith picture that it's set in a kitchen and there's pans on fire and there's things spilling.

So there's lots of things happening at once, and it's very chaotic.

So I'm going to use that word commotion in my sentences in a moment, but I want to start with another quick time word, and I'm going to go with another quick time conjunction, sorry.

And I'm going to go with seconds later, and after my time conjunction, I put a comma because that's what I need to do when I've got a fronted adverbial.

So seconds later, there was a great commotion because what's happening, we've got villagers, we've got animals running around.

So seconds later, there was a great commotion as animals and villagers fled from the terrifying beasts.

So let's write that up.

So seconds later, there was a great commotion, that word means it was chaotic.

That was a great commotion.

And I've actually got another as complex sentence here.

But that's fine because it works in this case, there was a great commotion as animals and villagers fled they're running away, fled from the terrifying beast full stop And I might now just write, one really simple sentence that tells our reader what these beasts and what these creatures are.

And my sentence is going to be very simple.

It's just going to be the island was overrun with dragons, and I'm going to use an exclamation mark at the end of that sentence to show that I'm emphasising the fact that this is an exciting piece of information.

That it's something that causes strong emotion, so capital letter to start my sentence, the island was overrun, that means that it's covered.

And then lots of them was overrun with dragons and I'm putting my exclamation mark to emphasise that this causes strong emotions.

Let's reread those sentences.

Seconds later, there was a great commotion as animals and villagers fled from the terrifying beast.

The island was overrun with dragons.

Now it's your turn to write your sentence about seeing the dragon and about the great commotion on the island, when the dragon is flying around.

Make sure that you use tools on the screen to help you make good choices with your adjectives and your verbs and adverbs and use your notes that you took down earlier from the plan, off you go.

Okay, well done.

So we've written all of our sentences for the final part of the opening and this closes off the whole opening.

As we've watched it over the past three lessons, we've written all the different parts of the opening.

Really, well done.

So now it's time to read our final bit of the opening all the way through from start to finish.

I'm going to read mine and then it'll be your turn to read yours.

So I'm going to read, and if you want to read along reading out loud, you can join in out loud, or perhaps you might just follow with your reading finger.

Either one is fine, off we go.

In a matter of seconds, the innocent sheep was skillfully snatched from the ground by a mysterious beast.

Only the sound of beating wings could be heard as the sheep disappeared completely from where it stood moments before.

Seconds later, there was a great commotion as animals and villagers fled from the terrifying beasts.

The island was overrun with dragons.

Okay, your turn to read your writing now.

So pause the video and read your writing all the way from the start to the finish, off you go.

Okay, great.

I hope that you enjoyed reading your writing.

Really well done for writing all of your sentences.

And we've now completed all of the different sections of this lesson.

So you should be very proud of yourself because you've worked really hard.

Well done for all of your hard work.

If you'd like to can share what you've done in this lesson with a parent or carer.

I will see you in an upcoming lesson to continue on learning on how to train your dragon unit.

See you soon, bye.