Lesson video

Hi, everybody, it's Ms. Gardner, and welcome to today's handwriting lesson.

In today's lesson, we are going to be practicing our cursive handwriting whilst writing some famous quotations.

I really hope you enjoy it, so let's get started.

Your learning outcome for today's lesson is to correctly copy out famous quotations in cursive handwriting.

Let's start by looking at the key words.

We'll do my turn, your turn.

Quotation.

A quotation is a word, phrase, or sentence that is taken directly from someone's speech or writing and is presented within quotation marks to indicate it as somebody else's words.

Inverted commas.

These are also known as quotation marks, and they are punctuation marks used to indicate the beginning and end of direct speech or a quotation.

Famous.

Someone who is famous is known about by many people.

Join.

This is how the letters are connected together.

So there are two sections of our lesson today, and the first, we'll be doing a handwriting warmup.

Then we'll be reviewing and copying some famous quotations.

We're not going to be writing our own quotations today.

The purpose of this lesson is to practice our cursive handwriting.

So we're going to be doing that by copying other people's quotations.

So let's start with a warmup.

Before we start, what are these pictures reminding you to do? Have a think by yourself or chat with the person next to you or with your class.

Pause the video now.

Okay, so the first picture is reminding us that when we're handwriting, doing our handwriting, we need to be sat on a chair and at a table or a desk to have our feet flat on the floor with our back against the chair.

The second picture, reminding you to angle your paper correctly.

So if you're right-handed it, the paper should be tilted or angled slightly to the left.

If you're left-handed, the paper should be angled slightly to the right, and then your non-writing hand is supporting you by keeping the paper still.

And then the third picture, it's reminding you to hold your pencil or pen in the tripod grip.

Before starting to write, it's really important to warm up your hand and your wrist muscles, just like you would warm up any of your muscles before you take part in a sports match.

Your hands and wrists gets stronger when you exercise them.

So warming up your hands before writing will then actually help to improve your handwriting.

Making your hands stronger will also help to speed up your handwriting, make you get quicker and quicker.

I'm going to choose and do a hand and wrist warmup.

Let's warm up our hands using the piano-playing technique.

This is one of my favorite warmups to do, because you get to use your imagination to imagine in your head a really lovely tune.

So you are going to pretend that you've got a piano underneath your hands, and you're gonna stretch out your hands and your fingers, ready to play your tune.

Then you're gonna start pushing down on the keys and playing a melody in your head.

Maybe you might stretch your fingers.

You've gotta reach a note that's a bit further away.

Maybe you're gonna push down on one finger on one note for a bit longer.

There's no right or wrong with this.

You're just imagining a nice song.

And the tune might change the melody, the speed might change, which means that you need to move your fingers in different ways.

Okay, it's your turn.

Get your fingers ready.

Imagine you've got a keyboard or a piano underneath you.

And then in your head, imagine a song that you're playing on the piano with your fingers.

This is a really good way to not only warm up your fingers, but also stretch them, 'cause you might need to stretch to play a different piano.

Have you got a fun song that you're imagining in your head? I'm sure you're all doing great.

Well done, and I hope your fingers feel really warmed up now for handwriting.

Let's do the wrist shake warmup.

This is one of my favorites.

This is a really fun one.

So I'm gonna start with just one wrist at a time, and I'm just gonna simply shake my wrists, left to right, left to right, back and forth, back and forth.

That's a really good way of warming up your wrist.

Then I'm gonna do my other hand.

Left to right, left to right, left to right, back and forth, back and forth.

Now I'm gonna do them together.

There we are.

Wrists feel really warmed up now.

So now it's your turn.

Everyone get your wrists ready.

One hand, two hands, both hands, it doesn't matter what.

And you're gonna start shaking them, left to right, left to right, left to right, back and forth, back and forth.

Maybe twisting it around in a circle like that so that they're feeling really warmed up.

Great, now we're ready for some handwritings.

Another great thing to do before you start handwriting is to practice writing patterns, as this helps us to prepare for writing and for joining letters.

You can see these writing patterns on the screen will require a really similar hand movement to cursive handwriting.

So I'm going to choose a writing pattern in the air with my finger, and then you are going to have a go.

I'm gonna start with the top one, the one that looks a little bit like Ls joined together or L and a U, or maybe even Ws.

It almost looks like a cursive handwriting, doesn't it? So I'm gonna start at the bottom and then I'm gonna go up and then down and then a little bit up and then down, up, all the way down, little bit up, up all the way, and back down.

Really focusing on keeping my movement smooth and flowing.

Then I'm going to do the next one.

This one almost looks like you're joining lowercase Es together.

It's a loop.

So going up and then looping down, looping up, looping down, looping up, looping down, looping up and looping down.

Okay, it's your turn.

You're going to choose a writing pattern to do in the air with your finger.

I'm going to leave you to do this independently.

So pause the video now, and off you go.

Well done, everybody.

I hope you enjoyed that.

Okay, it's time for task A.

You need to copy and continue these patterns using your tripod grip.

Remember, don't lift your pencil when forming the pattern, and really focus on keeping the movement smooth and flowing.

Pause video now and off you go.

Well done, everybody.

I hope you enjoyed that.

So were you using your tripod grip? Did you keep your pencil on the page? Was your movement smooth? If you need to, you can pause video now and have another practice at this.

Otherwise, well done.

Okay, we're warmed up.

So it's time for the second part of our lesson, where we are going to be reviewing and copying some famous quotations.

So a famous quotation is a well-known phrase or statement or passage attributed to a particular person.

So someone who said it or wrote it, work or source, and is often used and recognized by a wide audience.

These quotations often gain prominence, maybe due to their wit, their humor, their wisdom.

So maybe they're saying something really wise and knowledgeable, they're eloquence or insight, and they may be used to illustrate a point or to inspire you or to provoke thought to make you think about something or convey a universal truth.

Practice writing famous quotations in cursive handwriting will help improve your handwriting.

Can you remember the four joins that we've learned in cursive handwriting? Here's an example of each join to help you.

Have a think or by yourself or discuss this with your partner or your class.

How could you describe each join? Pause a video now.

Okay, so the first join, you can see that's how A and W are joined.

It's from the baseline to the x-height line.

The second join is from the baseline, up towards the ascender line.

The third join goes from the x-height line, dipping down a little bit below, and to the x-eight line.

Then the fourth join goes from the x-height line up towards the ascender line.

If you need to, you can pause video and take a closer look at these joins to see if you're feeling really confident about them.

Okay, well done.

So let's look closely at the first famous quotation.

I'm going to read it out first.

"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships." Have you ever heard of this quotation before? Have you got any idea who might have said it? So this inspiring quote is from the legendary, so really famous, he's a legend, basketball player, Michael Jordan.

And this quote supports the importance of collaboration, so teamwork and a strategic thinking, intelligence that he spoke about, in achieving significant success.

Michael Jordan thinks that individual talents can contribute to short-term victories.

However, lasting success of winning the championships, not just a game, often relies on effective teamwork.

Would you agree with that? Do you think teamwork is the most important thing in winning games? So let's look closely at the handwriting in this first famous quotation.

What do you notice about the letter formations? Pause the video now and take a close look.

Okay, so what do we notice? The first word begins with a capital letter, the capital T, and you'll notice that the capital T is not joined to the next letter A.

Instead, the letter A begins with a lead in from the baseline, just like every other word begins with the lead in from the baseline and finishes with the lead out.

There are some looped descenders, the letter G and games and intelligence.

There's even letter spacing, so the letters aren't squashed too close together or spread too far apart.

There is a full stop at the end of the sentence, and then on either side of the quotation are inverted commas, which show that this is a quotation.

Let's look even more closely.

So the quotation is enclosed within inverted commas, which is another term for quotation marks.

The first letter is a capital letter, and therefore, does not join to the next letter.

The letter after the capital letter in this word, A in talent starts with a lead in from the baseline.

All of the other words have a lead in and a lead out.

All four cursive letter joins are used when writing this quotation.

I wonder if you can spot more.

Pause the video now and take a close look to try and see if you can find all four joins.

So did you notice anything about the size of the letters? This quotation is not written actually on tramlines.

It's written on handwriting lines.

So all of the letters are sitting on the baseline, but they're not floating above.

Letters with descenders reach below the baseline and have a lead out, looped lead out.

And letters with ascenders are reaching up and can be identified now as tall letters, 'cause they're not going all the way to the line above.

All of the x-height letters are the same height.

That's really important.

You want to try and keep a really consistent size for your x-height letters.

As you become more confident with your letter formation, you can move away from tramlines that we've been practicing on and onto writing lines.

And these writing lines are probably the ones that are more similar to the ones you'd find in your books.

Let's practice writing this famous quotation.

"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships." I'm making sure I'm sitting comfortably and my pen is in the tripod grip.

I'm gonna start first with the first pair of inverted commas and then the capital letter of the first word, 'talent.

' So inverted commas, and then capital T.

Then I can lift off my pen, because I'm not joining it to the next letter, A.

So I'm gonna start with my lead in on the baseline.

I'm really gonna try and make sure my pen is flowing smoothly as I connect the letters.

And I'm not going to take my pen off the page until the letter string is complete.

So T for talent and then lead in, A to L to E, then finishing with a lead out, and then I'll go back and cross my T.

"Talent wins." Okay, lead in to form the letter W, joining W to I, I to N, and S finishing with a lead out, and then I go back and dot my I.

Okay, lead in, looped descender, but not all the way down, then finishing with a lead out.

Okay, I need to do my comma now.

So I'm going to just do it just below the line.

Lead in.

And then I'll go back and cross my T.

"But teamwork," lead in.

Again, I'll cross my T afterwards, T to A, and then up towards the line above, finishing with a lead out.

Then I'll go and cross my T.

But teamwork and intelligence, lead in to form the letter A and D.

Okay, there's not quite enough space there.

Now, I'm going to write on the line below.

"Intelligence." Really trying to make sure all my low x-height letters are about the same height and smaller than the tall letters.

Looped descender.

Now I'll go back, cross my Ts and dot my Is.

"Win," lead in.

Now, I'll go back and dot my I.

Championships.

Lead in again to the letter, but not all the way up.

Making sure I'm staying on the baseline.

Notice I haven't taken my pen off the page for the whole word.

Then I'm finished the word, I'll go back and dot my Is.

Then it's not the end yet 'cause I still need to do a full stop and my closing inverted commas.

Great.

Checking for understanding.

When you write on handwriting lines, you don't need to worry about letter formation or size.

Pause video now.

That is false.

Can you use A or B to justify your answer? A, when writing on lines, so handwriting lines, you should be able to identify the x-height letters, the descender, and the ascender letters.

B, tramlines help to keep your letters the correct size and shape.

Pause the video now.

That's right, it is A.

Tramlines are really useful when you're starting out with cursive handwriting, because they help you to keep your letters the correct size and shape.

But when you're using the new lines, the handwriting lines, you need to be thinking a bit more carefully about your letter formation and the size, 'cause we want to be able to tell the difference between the tall letter, ascender letter, and an x-height letter.

Well done.

Let's now look closely at another famous quotation.

I'll read it now.

"If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one." Have you ever heard this quotation before? Do you know who said it? This is a quote from the humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mother Teresa.

This quote supports the importance of making a difference, no matter how small.

Helping one person in need, even if it's only one person, can still have a really meaningful impact.

What do you notice about the letter formation and joins in this quotation? Pause the video now and take a closer look.

Okay, let's look at our quote from Mother Teresa.

The quotation is enclosed with inverted commas to show that it's a quotation.

The first word in the sentence has a capital letter, the letter I, and it does not join to the next letter F.

The letter after the capital letter, F, starts with a lead in from the baseline.

All of the other words have a lead in and lead out, and there is one comma used in this quotation after the subordinate clause.

"If you can't feed a hundred people," comma, and the comma goes just, it starts at the top of the line and it goes just below it.

The first, second, and third join are used in the formation of this quotation, and there is a full stop at the end of the quotation, just before the final inverted comma.

Checking for understanding.

Select the correctly punctuated quotation - A, B, or C.

Pause the video now, and off you go.

Okay, so the correctly punctuated quotation is C.

You have your inverted commas on either side of the quotation.

The quotation starts with a capital letter for I, and there is a full stop before the final quotation.

And there is a full stop at the end.

Well done.

It's time for task B.

You need to copy the following famous quotations in cursive handwriting on your writing lines.

Remember, if we're not using the tramlines, you need to be thinking really carefully about the letter formation and the sizes of each letter.

So I really hope you enjoy this.

Pause the video now, and off you go.

Well done, everybody.

How was that? Did you remember the inverted commas either side of every quotation? Did each quotation start with a capital letter? Did you ensure your letters with the correct size and formation? I'm sure you all did brilliantly.

Read back through all of your quotations that you've just written in cursive handwriting.

Circle your best join, the one you're most proud of, and celebrate.

Great job.

Here's a summary of everything we've learned today.

A famous quotation is a well-known phrase, statement, or passage attributed to a particular person, work, or source that is often used and recognized by a wide audience.

Inverted commas, also known as quotation marks, are punctuation marks used to indicate the beginning and end of a direct speech or a quotation.

Quotations start with the capital letter.

After forming the capital letter, you lift your pencil.

The letters and the letter strings are joined using a range of joins, depending on which letter is joining to which letter.

When writing on lines, you must ensure that the letter formation and letter spacing is correct so that the writing is legible.

Well done today, everybody.

Great job.