Lesson video

Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new unit, unit 15.

And to lesson one of that unit.

In this unit, we are going to be thinking about a created story from unit 14 and using it to help us create a news report.

We looked at this a little bit in a deepening activity in unit 14 but we're really going to expand and dig deeper into the detail for this one.

When I watch the news, I'm always fascinated to see all the different things that are going on in the world.

There's often lots of positive news, which is my favourite type of news, but there can also be some negative news.

I guess our news report is going to be sort of negative because we're going to be thinking about a stolen item and a crime that has taken place.

Do you watch the news? Can you think of any of the most interesting news reports that you have seen? In today's lesson, we're going to start off with a spelling activity and a brand new spelling rule.

You're then going to listen to my news report.

We're going to create a story map for the news report and then we're going to do a challenge task to really challenge our brains.

For our spelling rule, to start us off from this brand new unit, we're going to be looking at common exception words.

Common exception words are what we call the words that do not follow our spelling rules.

And because of this, we basically just have to learn them.

The rules won't necessarily help us to know how to spell them.

There are lots of different ways that we can learn how to spell them.

And over this unit, we're going to try some different techniques.

One way that I like to learn and remember common exception words is by creating a mnemonic.

A mnemonic is like a fun, little silly poem that helps you to remember it by taking the letters in the word and creating a little poem.

For example, in could, would and should.

When I was younger, I used to find it difficult to remember the spelling of the OULD section, the O U L D.

One mnemonic that helped me to remember that was, "Oh U Lucky Duck." Now this one's a little bit cheeky because the U, when we actually spell out the word, you, it's Y O U, isn't it? But because we're saying U, it helps us to remember, Oh U, L for lucky, D for duck, and that's the O U L D of could, would and should.

Busy is another one of our common exception words.

This one helps me because I think of busy bees.

Now this one is really silly.

Sometimes the sillier the mnemonic, the easier it is to remember.

So for busy I think, busy Bees Use Silver Yoyos.

B for bees, U for use, S for silver, Y for yoyos.

Busy Bees Use Silver Yoyos.

This picture made me laugh, I hope it cheers you up too.

For fast I did, Find All Silly Trumpets.

That picture certainly shows a silly trumpet, doesn't it? Find All Silly Trumpets was for fast.

I would like you to have a go now at creating your own silly mnemonic for the words below, wild, eye, path and gold.

You don't need to do all of them.

You can choose one or two that you would like to do, and you simply have to take the letters of the word and create a funny poem or rhyme that will help you to remember them.

Fantastic.

You had some brilliant ideas.

I'm now going to read you my news report.

Now this news report is going to be based on our creative story from the previous unit.

Can you remember what it was about? That's right.

We had our main character of Apollo, didn't we? And he had something that he treasured, his favourite possession or his most-loved personal animal, you got to choose, and it was stolen from him by Hades.

And because he was the god of light and sun, when he was sad with his missing item gone, the Sun disappeared and everything went dark and everything began to die.

Our news report is going to be about this stolen item.

So for me, it's going to be about the stolen harp but for you, it will be whatever your stolen item was.

It's going to involve a TV interviewer, and we looked at this a little bit in unit 14, asking lots of questions.

So if you've ever seen a report on the news and they're in the news studio, and then sometimes they go out of the news studio to someone else who they call "in the field", which means they're where something is happening.

They go over to them and they'll often then tell you about a news story.

Sometimes they'll interview someone who's there and then they'll send it back to the studio for the rest of the news.

We're going to be writing and acting out something like that in this unit.

So for this very news story, I'm going to have a reporter.

They're going to be on Earth where the harp was stolen.

They're going to be giving us a short introduction of what happened and the general information about the story.

They're then going to interview Apollo and ask him three questions about what happened.

Then there's going to be a short conclusion where they summarise the information, and then they're going to send it back to the news studio for the rest of the news report.

I really enjoyed writing this and I hope that you will enjoy listening to it and then writing your own during the rest of this unit.

Okay.

So for the news report today, I'm going to be switching backwards and forwards between myself as the presenter of the news show and then to Apollo during the interview as well.

So I'm going to try and change my mannerisms and my gesture and my voice, and I'm also going to move my body physically and to help show the difference between the two characters too, okay? So, good evening.

My name is Miss Weerasekera and I'm reporting for you live from Earth for Oak Academy News.

I'm here today to bring you the latest updates on the mysterious disappearance of the much-loved harp.

It was reportedly stolen just hours ago here on Earth from Apollo, the god of sun and light.

According to our sources, the harp originally belonged to Apollo, and was last seen and heard playing it's beautiful melodies here on Earth.

Witnesses believe that the harp was stolen during the middle of the day as they recall the Sun shining bright, high in the sky.

One eyewitness states that they saw Hades, god of death, lurking nearby the scene.

Hades has already been involved in a number of strange disappearance cases, so he remains the number one suspect on the disappearance of the harp too.

Hear with me now, I have Apollo himself to shed some more light on the details of this case.

Welcome Apollo.

Firstly, I'd just like to express my condolences for the loss of your harp.

Can you tell us a bit more about why this harp is so special to you and how you're dealing with the loss of it? Yes, thank you Miss Weerasekera.

As I'm also the god of music, this harp is pretty vital to my role, not only as a beautiful instrument, but it brings joy to both myself and everyone on Earth through its beautiful music.

Anyone who's been lucky enough to hear its sweet melodies will know the uplifting effect it has.

And to be quite honest, I'm feeling quite depressed and down now that it's gone.

I'm so sorry to hear that Apollo.

Now we've noticed that the Sun has disappeared.

As the god of sun and light, is there anything you can do to bring it back? I may be the god of sun and light, but my ability to control them is completely dependent on my mood.

Without the harp, I just can't see myself having the drive or the energy to bring the Sun back up.

That's why I'm so keen to get my harp back.

I know that without it, the plants will wilt and die and soon enough we'll have nothing to eat.

So this situation could get a lot worse, not just for you, but for all of us as well? Now Hades is currently the number one suspect on this case.

Do you think he's responsible? If you could send him a message, what would you say? Listen, I've had multiple run-ins with Hades in the past.

We all know he was responsible for the disappearance of Persephone all of those years ago.

In that situation, Zeus stepped in and intervened and reasoned with Hades and I'm hoping he's going to be able to do the same for me.

I'd go and speak to Hades myself, but that didn't work out well last time, trust me.

At this point, I'm willing to cooperate and compromise and just share the harp with Hades.

I'm hoping that he can see reason before it's too late.

Thank you Apollo for taking the time to talk to us today.

I think it's safe to say that we're all rooting you and the safe return of your harp.

Thank you.

So there you have it, a bad situation that look like it could get a whole lot worse.

There are hopes that Hades will return the harp or that Zeus will intervene and negotiate a deal.

As the sky darkens here, it certainly feels like many are starting to lose hope for a quick and easy fix to this situation.

Again, if you have any information about the whereabouts of the harp or of Hades, please contact the police as soon as possible.

I am Miss Weerasekera reporting to you live from Earth, back to the studio.

Okay.

So there's our news report.

I hope you don't mind my quite bad acting.

We're going to create a story map for our news report today.

And our story map is going to look a little bit different, which you'll see in a moment.

It's going to have a slightly different structure to the story maps that we have done in previous units, but I will take you through it step by step.

Make sure that you've got a piece of paper and a pen or pencil so that you're ready to do your story map alongside mine.

For our story map today, instead of just doing it picture by picture with areas in between, we're going to have some different sections for the different parts of our news report, so that we're really clear as we go on to stepping and speaking the story about the difference, that there is different content in different sections.

We're going to have five different parts today, and that means that we're going to need five bigger kind of bubbles that we're going to put other pictures in on our piece of paper.

So I'm going to do one up here, and this one's going to be our introduction to the news report.

And have one here.

This is going to be question one that the interviewer asks Apollo.

Then I'm going to have question two.

Arrow showing the direction and the order of the events.

Question three.

And then finally our last section is going to be our conclusion.

Okay, that final bit that the news reporter says to summarise what's happened.

Okay.

So to start off with our introduction, it's mostly, once you've kind of introduced yourself as the news reporter, if the content is who, what, where, when, why, okay? So let's think what we've got.

We've got who, and we know that the who is going to be Apollo and it's going to be Hades.

They're the kind of two main characters that take part in this kind of crime scene.

Then we've got what.

We know that it was the lovely harp, in my case, that was stolen.

But if you can think back to unit 14 and the item that you had stolen from Apollo, then you would put that here.

Or if you just would like to think of something else to put there now, you can choose what you'd like it to be.

Where? We know that the news reporter is reporting from Earth, aren't they? Okay.

When? You know that everyone said that it was stolen in the middle of the day 'cause they could see the Sun in the sky.

And then, why? So the why, we don't really know.

But it's to do with Hades, isn't it? He wanted that harp.

Okay.

So that is my introduction.

It's got a summary of the main information about the case, about the situation for the news report.

After that, we then move on to our interview.

Now for our interview, the first question was all about, "Why is the harp so special?" and "How is Apollo feeling now that it's gone?" So we know that the harp is special, in my case, because it plays lovely music.

And that makes people happy.

So not just Apollo, but lots of other people too.

He says, doesn't he? It's not just him.

There are people too, okay? And then, when the harp is gone, it makes Apollo sad.

And when Apollo is sad, he can't bring out the sunshine and it's dark.

Okay? So in our question two, the news reporter is saying the Sun's disappeared, what can you do? Can you bring it back out again? So you'll have a Sun, looks like that one that's gone, and the question is, can he bring it back out again? He says, what does Apollo say? He says he's too sad and he can't do it, he can only do it if he gets his harp back, that's the only time he can bring back the sunshine, okay? Now remember in this one and here, whenever I'm talking about the harp, you can just replace it with whatever the item is that you, what you decided was stolen.

Okay.

So question three is when the news reporter says, "Hades is the main suspect." "Do you think it was him?" And, "What would you like to say to him?" So we know that firstly, we've got Hades here.

He's accused by Apollo of being the one that took Persephone, isn't he? In fact, let's give her a sad face because she's afraid.

Not happy, is she? She'd been taken.

Then he talks about the fact that he hopes that Zeus will come.

What does he hope Zeus will do? That's it.

Hopefully they can reach an agreement before it's too late he says, doesn't he? So we'll have the time and we'll have the Sun crossed out again there.

Yeah.

So hope that he'll do it before it's too late.

And then finally our conclusion is when after the interview, the news reporter summarises what's happened.

So I'm going to draw a thumbs down, 'cause the news reporter said that things are going to get worse it seems. And as she said that as the Sun sets, that hope was disappearing.

And then she said to remember to call the police if you had any information, okay? So I have my introduction with the overview of the story.

Question one was, "Why is the harp important?" or the item.

"How are you feeling now that it's gone?" Next one, "Can you bring back the Sun?" He says he's too sad, that he can only bring back the Sun if he gets his harp back.

"What would you want to say to Hades?" "What do you think about Hades being a suspect?" He accuses Hades of taking Persephone.

He hopes that Zeus will come and help him and make a deal.

And he says time is running out.

And then finally in the conclusion, things are not looking bad.

That's my thumbs down.

It's not a very good drawing.

You could probably do a better one, seeing a finger.

That the Sun was setting and everyone was losing hope, but if you've got any information to call the police.

Okay.

So now it's time for you to either finish off or do your own story map.

Mine is on there as a picture to help you, but if you would like to go back and look at the video and pause it step by step, please do to help you.

Press pause here, finish off or create your story map and then press play when you are ready.

That story map is looking fantastic.

Well done to taking on a new format so brilliantly.

For your challenge task today, the question says, "What questions would you ask Hades if you were interviewing him for a news report?" So in this one, we've interviewed Apollo, but it would be interesting to also interview Hades, wouldn't it? To get his side of the story.

I've put some sentence stems to help you there.

"I would ask Hades.

." or "One thing I'd like to know is.

." So we're trying to think about what would you ask him to find out about the story from his perspective.

Pause here and then press play when you've had a go at creating your own questions for Hades.

Those are some fantastic questions.

Perhaps we could think about how Hades would answer them too.

I'm so excited about this unit and all the chances we're going to have to do drama and roleplay and acting and using our voice, as well as doing our writing.

I think it's going to be so much fun.

I hope to see you in the next lesson where we're going to use our story map to help us speak and step the story.

If you would like to share your story map with me, ask a parent or carer to take a picture and share it on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and using the hashtag #LearnwithOak.