Lesson video

Hello, my name is Miss Butt and today I'm going to be teaching you some new vocabulary that I hope is going to be very useful in your writing on Macbeth.

Now I know the first piece of writing you're working towards is describing the opening scene, which is a very eerie and spooky scene where Macbeth meets the three witches up on the heath.

Now I was thinking about words that would be useful and one thing that's really useful when we're describing a setting is describing the weather.

And quite often the weather matches the mood.

So today, to match the grim mood and slightly spooky mood, we're going to be learning dark and rainy words.

I hope that you enjoy today's lesson.

Here's what we're going to do in today's lesson.

First I'm going to introduce the new vocabulary one word at a time, and we're going to look at illustrations which will help us to understand what the words mean.

Then we're going to identify word pairs and synonyms which will give us a deeper understanding of the words and how to use them appropriately.

And finally, we're going to apply the words in sentences, and we're going to try to use sentences that will be really helpful in your opening scene of Macbeth.

So for today's lesson, you're going to need your brains the whole way through.

You're going to need something to write on and something to write with towards the end of the lesson.

So now would be a really good time to make sure you've got everything you need, that you've cleared away anything that might distract you and that you're ready and focused to start your learning.

So you can pause the video to make sure you've got everything you need now.

Okay, great, so let's get started.

So here's some key vocabulary we're going to be using in today's lesson.

I'm going to say each word and then I'd like you to repeat it back to me just so I know that we're all engaged.

Synonym, word pair, adjective, noun.

A synonym is a word that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, like merry and happy.

So today we're going to be learning synonyms for dark or rainy words.

Word pairs are words that often appear together, like a bright sun, a bright moon, or a bright light.

Adjectives are describing words.

And we're going to add lots of describing words in our detail of our opening scene.

So today we're going to actually be learning three adjectives.

And adjectives often describe nouns.

A noun is a person, a place or a thing.

So anything that we would describe in the opening scene, whether it was the witches, the heath or the clouds are all nouns.

Let's start thinking a little bit about the weather.

If you imagine there was a sad scene in a film, what would the weather be like in that sad scene? Can you pause the video and have a think about that? So often in films or in books or in stories when something sad happens, the weather turns very rainy or grey.

And that's often because it adds to the whole atmosphere.

If something really sad happened but outside it was a beautiful blue sky and it's a lovely sunny day, it might not add to the atmosphere that we're trying to create.

Whereas if something sad happened at the same time as there was thunder and lightning or rain lashing at the window, or equally as something scary happened and there was a storm, it all builds and adds to the atmosphere.

There is actually a special word for this and it's called pathetic fallacy.

It's a very grownup word that we can use to say when the weather matches the mood.

So our atmosphere in the opening scene, we want it to be eerie and spooky and a bit gloomy.

So they're the kind of words we are going to be learning today.

Let's take a look at our first dark or rainy word.

Before I show you the word, I'm going to first show you the illustration.

Now you might be a bit confused cause this has got nothing to do with the weather but this word can be used to describe the weather.

So can you pause the video and have a look at what's happening in this picture? What story is it telling and how is the character feeling? You can either have a think about it in your heads or you can describe it out loud.

Pause the video and have a go.

Well I think that this dog has obviously been looking forward to eating these donuts probably all day and then he's gone and opened up the box and found a note that says I-O-U, so somebody has obviously eaten all his donuts.

And that feeling is so horrible, when you've been really looking forward to something and then you realise it's actually been taken away from you.

And this character looks absolutely devastated.

So let's find out what this word could be.

Bleak.

Bleak.

Bleak is an adjective meaning gloomy or depressing, like the hopeless feeling you get when you realise all your doughnuts are gone.

So you could, as you can see in this image here, you could have a bleak feeling, but also you could describe the weather as being bleak if it was gloomy or depressing weather.

So I'm going to read a set of words to you now, and some of these words are word pairs but some of them are synonyms, which means they mean the same thing as bleak.

I wonder if you can spot the synonyms as I read them, there should be three synonyms of bleak: mood, midwinter, hopeless, picture, dreary, outlook, landscape, gloomy, future, and wasteland.

To help you, here's the word in a sentence: There was not a single speck of colour in the bleak landscape.

Can you pause the video and see if you can tell me the three synonyms of bleak? So the synonyms are: hopeless, dreary and gloomy, and that means all the other words are word pairs, which I'll read to you now.

So you could have a bleak mood.

Have you ever felt in a bleak mood before? A bleak midwinter.

There is actually a song called In The Bleak Midwinter.

A bleak picture.

Perhaps if it was very grey and dark and made you feel a bit sad when you looked at it.

A bleak outlook.

An outlook is a view or a person's general attitude to life.

So you might have a really positive outlook on life or a negative outlook.

If you had a bleak outlook, then you've obviously got a very negative outlook on life.

Bleak landscape.

Now I think that the heath where the witches are and where Macbeth is would probably be very bleak.

I can't imagine birds and flowers growing there and blue skies.

A bleak future and a bleak wasteland.

Also, that would be a nice way to describe the heath; a wasteland.

So when we learn new words, it's really important not just to read them or hear them, but to actually say them yourself, because it's in saying the words over and over again that they stick in our memories.

So I'd like you now to pause the video and have a go at reading these word pairs out loud just as I did.

Off you go.

Well done.

So before we move on to our second word, can you just tell me what does bleak mean? You can use the image to help you.

Well done, it means gloomy or depressing.

Let's take a look at our second illustration.

Now again, this doesn't look like it's of the weather, that this word could be used to describe the weather.

So this is actually one of my favourite Mrs Wordsmith illustrations.

I love all of the little details in this image.

So can you now pause the video and look closely at all the little details in this picture? What story is it telling? How do you think this character is feeling? So it looks like this poor character's job is to spend all day long putting heads on teddy bears.

The teddy bears are moving along a conveyor belt and she's pulling a lever, which means that each time she pulls the lever, a head pops out of that tube.

And it looks very funny seeing all of those teddys' heads squished up in a tube.

You'll also notice a poster in the background that says smile and hang in there.

Perhaps she's put those up to try and cheer herself up because this job looks really boring.

If she was doing the same thing every day, just all day pulling that lever.

And it doesn't look like she's got people to talk to or people around her because sometimes if you're doing the same thing all day, but you've got nice friendly people around you, you can actually have a really nice time.

It looks like she's a bit lonely and a bit bored and a bit fed up.

It also doesn't look particularly nice in that factory.

It's not nice colourful things everywhere.

And there's no windows where you can look outside.

Let's see what this word is.

Dreary.

Dreary.

Dreary is an adjective meaning boring or miserable; like a dull job doing the same thing over and over again.

If the weather was boring or miserable, what do you think it might be like? So dreary comes from the German root for sad.

Why do you think dreary is used to describe a dull day? What link is there between a dull day when the weather is dull and feeling sad? Yeah, that's right.

When it's dull outside, you sometimes feel sad.

Not always, not if you were in a good mood or you were doing something exciting, but sometimes if it's just one of those really dreary dull days, it can just make you feel a bit dreary as well.

So let's take a look at some words that could be synonyms of the word dreary.

I'm going to read the set of words to you and as I read them, see if you can spot the three synonyms. Task, winter, weather, afternoon, drab, dungeon, bleak, mood, sky, existence, uninteresting.

To help you, here's the word in a sentence.

Thick mist hung in the dreary sky, making the day seem like night.

Can you pause the video now and tell me the three synonyms of dreary? Let's see how you got on.

The synonyms are: drab, drab means very dull, bleak, which we learnt earlier, and uninteresting.

And that means the rest of these words are word pairs, which I'll read to you now.

A dreary task, a bit like we can see in this illustration, a dreary winter, dreary weather, a dreary afternoon, a dreary dungeon, a dreary mood a dreary sky, and a dreary existence.

Could you pause the video now and read the word pairs out loud just as I did? Brilliant, well done.

So before we move on to our final word, can you please remind me what does dreary mean? Use the illustration to help you.

That's right, it means boring or miserable.

Let's take a look at our final illustration.

Now this one does look like it's got something to do with weather.

So what's happening here? Can you describe what you can see and how we might describe this? Pause the video and have a go at that now.

This little character looks absolutely terrified and is driving away as quickly as possible because there is an enormous tornado that looks like it's chasing behind him.

Let's find out what this word is.

Ominous.

Ominous.

Ominous is an adjective meaning scary, threatening, or menacing, like a huge dark tornado spinning towards you.

Ominous comes from the same root word as omen, which is a sign.

The difference is though you can have good omens and bad omens.

The ancient Greeks and ancient Romans used to believe that if you saw certain things, perhaps it might be a bird in the sky or something, it would be a good omen, so a sign that something good was going to happen.

But also, they believed that certain things would be a bad omen, so something bad was going to happen.

And we can see how that links to this word ominous, because it's almost like you see something and it's a sign.

The word ominous is quite a negative word so if you saw an ominous shadow or if you heard an ominous sound, it's usually something that's quite scary and threatening.

So it's a perfect word to use in our opening scene of Macbeth, which is a very scary and threatening scene.

Let's take a look at which words are synonyms of ominous.

Threatening, tornado, menacing, cloud, silence, presence, sign, warning, shadow, eerie, and rumble.

Here's the word in a sentence to help you.

Three eerie figures cast ominous shadows on the bleak landscape.

Now, if a word is a synonym, you can often replace it in a word.

So that's quite a good way to check if it's a synonym, you could try taking out ominous and put the new word in and see if it sounds right.

Pause the video and have a go at spotting the three synonyms now.

Let's go through the answers.

The synonyms are threatening, menacing, and Erie.

We could say that the eerie figures cast threatening shadows, menacing shadows, or eerie shadows, although in this particular sentence, we wouldn't use eerie cause otherwise we'd be using it twice in one sentence and we should tend not to repeat words in the same sentence.

Okay.

That means the rest of these words are word pairs, which I'll read to you now.

An ominous tornado.

Why did I say an ominous tornado and not a ominous tornado? Yeah, that's right.

If a word starts in a vowel, A-E-I-O-U, we say an.

So we're separating the vowels with that an.

I keep saying onimous but it's ominous.

Perhaps we could just practise saying it again.

Ominous.

Thank you.

Sorry, I just needed to practise that myself.

An ominous cloud, ominous silence, ominous sign, an ominous warning, an ominous shadow, an ominous rumble, maybe that's a sign there's going to be thunder, and an ominous presence, so perhaps the witches were an ominous presence in the heath.

Can you please pause the video and have a go at reading these word pairs out loud and I hope you don't get muddled and say it the wrong way round like I did.

Good luck.

Okay, well done.

So we've now learned three new words that we can use to describe the opening scene of Macbeth.

Can you remember what each word is now we've done all three? Pause the video and see if you can tell me.

So the first word was bleak.

The second word was dreary and the third word was ominous.

Now I'd like you to see if you can define each word yourself.

It doesn't need to be the exact definition that I read to you earlier but sometimes when we put things in our own words and explain things ourselves, it helps us to remember them.

So imagine that you were explaining to somebody who never heard these words before, what they mean.

How would you describe them? Pause the video and have a go at that now.

Well done.

So let's go through the real definitions to see how close you were.

So bleak means gloomy or depressing.

Dreary means boring or miserable and ominous means scary or threatening or menacing.

Let's now have a look at some sentences and which word you think would fit best in each sentence? I'll read the first one to you.

The mh landscape stretched ahead for miles with nothing to be seen but thick mist and relentless rain.

Pause the video and have a think about which adjective works well in the sentence.

Now all of these words actually could work in this sentence because they're all adjectives.

I don't know if we'd describe the landscape as being ominous, but bleak or dreary, those could work.

I've gone for bleak because it says in the sentence that there's nothing there apart from mist and relentless rain.

But you could have also written dreary and that would also work.

If rain is relentless, it means it probably is going on and on and on and on.

It never stops.

Right, let's look at another sentence.

Above the heath, mh grey clouds threateningly loomed over Macbeth.

Which word would fit here? Now I've gone with the word dreary grey clouds, but ominous would have also worked really nicely here because if they were threateningly looming over Macbeth, like maybe it was about to have a downpour, ominous would also have worked really well.

And the final sentence is: the mh words of the witches filled Macbeth with fear, excitement, and curiosity.

Could they be speaking the truth? Pause the video and think about which word fits here.

So the answer is the ominous words.

They're kind of mysterious and threatening; we don't know exactly what they mean.

You might notice that the second sentence here is, could they be speaking the truth? Now I know it's a question because it's got a question mark at the end of it.

It's actually a rhetorical question.

A rhetorical question is a question that doesn't need to be answered.

Rhetorical questions can really help to build suspense in your narrative writing.

It's now your turn to write a sentence and you can use either the word bleak, dreary, or ominous.

If you wanted to, you could try to include two of them in one sentence or you could write a sentence with each word in it; so you could write three sentences.

Now, it can be quite tricky just thinking of a sentence on the spot so here are some sentence scaffolds that might help you.

The first two above the heath, comma, or beyond the nest, comma, are propositional phrases.

They're prepositions of place because they describe where it is happening.

So you could use the sentence starter above the heath, comma, and then you could describe perhaps the clouds or the nest, or you could just start your sentence with beyond the nest, comma, and then you could describe what was maybe on the heath.

You also could use the sentence starter, the three figures, and you could then pick an adverb and a verb of what they were doing.

The three figures loomed eerily in the shadows, or the three figures ominously spoke to Macbeth.

You'll notice that I turned the word ominous into ominously, which turns the adjective ominous into an adverb, which describes a verb.

So I would like you now to pause the video and have a go at either writing one, two or three sentences.

You can use these sentence stems if you want.

You don't have to.

The really important thing is to try to include one of the new words that we've learnt.

Good luck.

Excellent, well done.

I hope that you've enjoyed learning these new words and I hope they're really useful when you come to write the opening scene of Macbeth.

If you want to share any of your sentences that you wrote today, then you can ask a parent or carer to take a photo of them and you can upload them on Twitter.

I always love seeing the work that you are up to at home.

So if you'd like to do that, then please feel free to.

Thank you very much for watching this lesson and I'll see you soon.

Bye.