Lesson video

Hello, everyone! My name is Ms. Butt, and today we're going to be learning some new vocabulary.

I know that at the moment, you are writing a unit all about The Highwayman, and you're doing some narrative writing describing a scene where he's on his horse, and nighttime is approaching.

So today, we're going to be learning three different ways to describe nighttime.

I hope you enjoy today's lesson.

Here's what we're going to do today, first we're going to introduce the new words, one word at a time, and we're going to look at illustrations to help us understand what they mean.

Then, we're going to identify word pairs and synonyms, which will give us an even deeper understanding of these words, and how to use them in all kinds of different contexts.

And finally, we're going to apply these words in sentences, and the sentences that we're going to be writing will directly link to your unit on The Highwayman.

So hopefully you can practise sentences that you can then put straight in your narrative writing.

Now, right at the end of the lesson today, you're going to write a sentence yourself, so you will need something to write on, and something to write with.

Perhaps you could pause the video now to make sure you got the things that you need, and to make sure that you're ready and focused to start your learning.

Okay, let's get started.

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

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

Synonym, word pair, adjective, noun.

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

Word pairs are words that often appear together, so the word bright would have the word pairs sun, moon, or light.

An adjective is a describing word, and today we're going to be learning some adjectives.

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

So let's start thinking about nighttime.

Take a look at this picture, how would you describe this night's sky? Perhaps you could think of one or two adjectives to describe it.

Pause the video, and have a go at that now.

Lovely, well done.

Oh, perhaps you might describe this as a glistening night sky, you might say that stars are peppered across the sky, almost as if they're all dotted around.

Let's take a look at our first night word.

Now this night word, I'm not going to reveal to you until we've first all just had a look at the Mrs. Wordsmith illustration.

So, what can you see happening here? How do you think this character's feeling? How would you describe this room? What kind of atmosphere does this picture create? Can you pause the video and either have a think about it, or describe it out loud? Well this character, to me, looks like they've creaked open a door, and it looks like a very spooky atmosphere.

Now, cobwebs, spiders, skeletons, an old, ticking clock, looks like there's enormous, yellow eyes on the door, so it definitely looks a sort of spooky and mysterious kind of atmosphere in the room, and I think that's why the character looks so frightened.

Let's find out what this word is.

Eerie.

Eerie.

Eerie is an adjective, and it means weird, ghostly, or creepy, like a dark spooky room full of skeletons.

Let's take a look at some words that could be synonyms of eerie.

Remember, if a word's a synonym, it means the same thing.

Atmosphere, silence, calm, weird, light, sound, stillness, darkness, shadow, ghostly, mist, and uncanny.

Uncanny means strange or mysterious.

Here's the word in a sentence, eerie darkness engulfed him.

Now if something engulfs you, it's almost like it surrounds you or covers you completely, so imagine if darkness engulfed you, and especially if it was eerie darkness, you might feel quite frightened.

So could you pause the video, and see if you can spot the synonyms? I can see one, two, three, I wonder if you can spot the three that I can see.

Off you go.

So, the synonyms are, weird, ghostly, and uncanny, that means strange or mysterious, and that means the rest of these words are word pairs that I'll read to you now.

Eerie atmosphere, eerie silence, so imagine if you went inside a room, and you expected there to be lots of noise, but there was a silence, you might find that eerie, because it might be a bit strange, like where is everyone, where's all the noise? Eerie calm, eerie light, eerie sound, eerie mist, eerie shadow, eerie stillness, and eerie darkness.

So all of these words pairs would be really useful for your writing on The Highwayman, especially if you're trying to create a kind of creepy or spooky atmosphere, for example if you took the word pair eerie mist and you described there being an eerie mist around the trees, that would really help to create the spooky atmosphere.

So when we learn new words, the best way of holding onto those words and remembering them is actually saying them out loud.

So I'd like you to pause the video now, and read these word pairs out loud, just like I did.

Well done.

So can you remind me, what does eerie mean? What's the definition? Well done, it's weird, ghostly, or creepy.

Let's look at our second illustration.

What's happening in this picture? How do you think this character's feeling? What time of day do you think it is? What clues can you see? And what story is this telling? Pause the video and have a think about that now.

I can see a character who looks to me like they've been fishing, I can see that because they're holding a fishing rod and they've got a bucket and fish.

Now it looks to me like this is the end of the day's fishing, not the start of the day, because when we see the sun like that, where we sort of half see it, it could be that it's rising so it's early in the morning, or that it's setting, that it's late in the evening, but I think that it's sitting because as I said I can see that he's already got all his fish, he's obviously caught lots of fish in the day, he's pulled up his boat, and it's kind of dark, but it's not pitch black, and there's always like a lovely glow that sometimes you get when there's a sunset, you quite often get lovely orangey-pinky-purpley colours, and you can see that in this image here.

So this word is dusk.

Dusk.

So this is actually a noun, so it's not an adjective, it's not a describing word, it's a thing.

It means twilight or nightfall, the time just before the sun goes down when the evening sky is glowing.

I love the time of day when it's dusk, I think it always is really pretty.

Don't worry too much if you don't know what the word twilight is, because we're going to think about that later.

Now dusk comes just once a day, because in the morning, when the sun's rising, we actually call that dawn.

So when the sun's rising it's dawn, and when it sets we call it dusk.

Now which words are synonyms, do you think? Deepened, fell, gathered, evening, nightfall, lingered, descended, twilight, settled, and approached? So you'll notice that some of those words are actually verbs, they're doing words, and that's what dusk will do, which is strange to think of dusk doing something, since it's obviously not an alive person, but it can still do things.

So here's the word in a sentence, as dusk began to gather, gusty winds tore through the trees.

So again, you can really see here that I'm trying to build this quite threatening atmosphere at the end of the day, I could make dusk sound really lovely, as dusk began to gather, there was an orange glow in the trees, but because I'm saying that gusty winds tore through the trees, it's as if kind of trouble's on its way, and that this darkness that's approaching is actually a little bit frightening and threatening.

So could you pause the video and see if you could spot the three synonyms of this noun, dusk? Let's see how you got on.

The synonyms are evening, nightfall, and twilight, which means the rest of the words are the word pairs, so they're words that often appear with this word, dusk.

Dusk fell, dusk deepened, dusk gathered, dusk settled, so all of those word pairs are verbs, they're all doing words, things that dusk could do, dusk descended, that means if you ascend you go up, if you descend it comes down, dusk lingered, if something lingers it stays around for a long time, so therefor it wouldn't just suddenly, dusk wouldn't come where there's this lovely glow, and then go straight away, if it lingered that means that maybe the sun would take a long time to go down, and there was this lovely glow for a long time.

Dusk thickened, and dusk approached, so when it starts to get to the end of the day, so if you imagine you've had a day out, perhaps you've been at the beach, as dusk approaches at the end of the day, that's when you go and you start packing up, because soon it's going to be dark.

So just as before, could you please now read these word pairs out loud? Well done! So can you now remind me, what does this word dusk, which is a noun, what does it mean? Well done! It's twilight or nightfall, it's the time just before the sun goes down.

What's happening in this picture? This is a very similar word, just slightly different, which we'll talk about in a minute, but have a quick look at this picture, pause the video, and describe what's happening here.

So I can still see that glow that we get at dusk, because I can see that orange glow just from above, from above the grass there, but it does look quite dark, I'd say it looks a bit darker than it did in the image before, and I can see that because I can see that there are some stars out now, and the lamp has been turned on, and I can see that the lights from inside those houses as well are lit up, so I think it's a little bit darker, but it's not yet pitch black.

This word is twilight.

Twilight.

Twilight is also a noun, and it means dusk or early evening, the soft light of evening that is too dim to read by, that is obviously why she's standing under that lamp, now if dusk is a synonym of twilight, and twilight is a synonym of dusk, that shows us that dusk and twilight are very similar in meaning.

Twilight actually comes from the word twi, meaning two, and light, and this kind of makes sense because whereas dusk only comes once a day, because in the morning it's called dawn, twilight comes twice a day, it comes in the early evening, but it also comes in the early morning.

We often think of it though more, twilight, you think of it more in the evening time.

So let's take a look at which words are synonyms of twilight.

Dusk, autumn, gathering, early evening, fading, dusky, early, and semi-darkness, So semi-darkness is like half darkness, here's the word in a sentence, darkness gathered as the evening twilight became night.

Can you pause the video and see if you can identify the synonyms? So the synonyms are dusk, early evening, and semi-darkness.

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

So you might have an autumn twilight, evening twilight, a fading twilight, so if it's fading that's when the light's disappearing more and more, it's becoming dark, or in the morning it's fading and it's becoming daytime, early twilight, dusky twilight, and gathering twilight.

So that's interesting, dusky twilight, because it's taking the noun dusk and turned it into an adjective, dusky.

So could you please now pause the video and read these word pairs out loud, and that way hopefully this word, twilight, is going to stick in your memories? Well done.

So now we've learned all three words that we can associate with nighttime, can you remember what each word is? Pause the video and see if you can tell me.

So the first word we learned was eerie, the second one was dusk, and the third one was twilight, and dusk are twilight you know are very similar in meaning.

Now I'd like you to come up with your own definition for each word, when we explain things in our own words it really helps us to understand them, but also helps us to remember them, so imagine that you're speaking to someone who's never heard the word eerie, dusk, or twilight, and they haven't got access to these lovely images like you have, how would you describe what these words mean? Can you pause the video and have a go at doing that now? So here are the definitions so you can see how well you did, eerie means weird, ghostly, or creepy, dusk is twilight or nightfall, and twilight is dusk or early evening.

So now we're going to have a go at applying these words in sentences, and you'll notice that I've written these sentences about The Highwayman, so hopefully they'll be helpful for your writing.

Which word do you think would fit in this sentence? Perhaps there's more than one option.

Mmm had descended as the highwayman thundered along the winding road, but he could just make out the inn up ahead.

If he can just make it out, it means he can just about see it.

So pause the video and see if you can identify which word would fit well in this sentence.

So I've written twilight, but of course you could also have written dusk.

You'll notice that this is a complex sentence, because we could say twilight had descended full stop, that means that's the main clause, but then we say as and we give more information, so that part is the subordinating clause, and as is the conjunction to kind of link those two things together.

Lots of detail in this sentence, for example the detail of the highwayman thundering along the winding road, and him just being able to see the inn up ahead, which makes sense because it's that time of day, it's twilight.

Right, let's look at another sentence.

He galloped rapidly across the mmm moor, not daring to think about what was out there.

What do you think fits in this sentence? He galloped rapidly across the eerie moor, there was a bit of a clue there because if he wasn't daring to think about what was out there, it made us feel like he was perhaps a little bit frightened, and we know that eerie is a word that means spooky or scary.

Rapidly is an adverb, which describes the verb galloped, and it's another way of saying quickly.

Here's the final sentence.

Mmm drew nearer so he knew he had to get to the inn quickly.

What was drawing nearer, do you think? Pause the video and have a think about that now.

So again, I've written dusk, but you also could have written twilight, both would have worked in this sentence.

We couldn't say eerie drew nearer, because eerie isn't a noun, it's not a thing, it's an adjective, a describing word, so knowing the word class of words could help us to see whether they fit appropriately or not.

Now I'd like you to write your own sentence, and I'd like you to either use the word eerie, twilight, or dusk.

If you want to, you're really ambitious, and push yourself, you could even write three sentences, and include each word in a sentence, that's up to you.

Now it can be difficult just thinking of a sentence on the spot, so try to think about your writing in The Highwayman, and here's a little bit more help, here's some sentence scaffolds that you can use if you like, as a torrent of wind blew through the trees, comma, now this again is a complex sentence, because it starts with a conjunction as, which means that this first part is the subordinating clause, so what you would need to add in there after the comma is the main clause.

What's happening as the wind blew through the trees, and how could we include one of those words in the next part of the sentence? Hmm.

Perhaps you could say it's something like, as a torrent of wind blew through the trees, dusk descended.

It's your sentence though, so you can choose what you'd like to write.

Here's another idea to help you.

Now this sentence starts with the word desperately, which is an adverb, and describes how something happens, how a verb happens, desperately, the highwayman galloped through the night as, so again this is a complex sentence as well, but instead of starting with a conjunction, as, this time we've got it in the middle of our sentence, and with this time we don't need a comma.

So again, what could be happening as he galloped through the night? And could you include one of the words, eerie, twilight, or dusk? If you want to, you can use either of these scaffolds, or you can come up with your own sentence.

Can you please pause the video, and have a go at writing your own sentence or sentences now? Well done! You've worked really hard in this lesson, and you've learned three ambitious and exciting new words, I hope that these words, eerie, twilight, and dusk, are really helpful when you write your narrative writing about The Highwayman, but I also hope that now you feel confident to understand what they mean if you came across them in a book, or heard them in a conversation.

If you'd like to share any of the sentences you wrote today, you can ask a parent or carer to take a picture, and you can upload on twitter, so that we can see the brilliant work that you've been doing.

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

Bye everyone!.