Lesson video

Hi there, my name is Ms Vincent, I'm going to be part of a team of teachers who are going to teach you in this unit.

I'm so excited to teach you these lessons because this is one of my favourite units that I have ever taught.

This unit is based on the really exciting book series and film called How to Train Your Dragon.

And throughout the unit, we're going to do lots of exciting writing, looking at video clips, and learning all about the characters.

I hope that you enjoy it as much as I do.

So let's get started.

Okay, so this is our agenda for today.

And agenda just means everything that we're going to do and what order we're going to do it in.

So we're going to start today with a writing warm up to get our brains working and to get us ready for all of our learning.

After that, we're going to talk about who the author of How to Train Your Dragon series is.

And then we're going to move on to find out all about the setting of the story and the characters in the story.

And then the very last thing that we're going to do is think really hard about everything that we've learned in the lesson and try and recap it all.

So, before we can get started though, we have to think about what we need for this lesson.

So you will need an exercise book or a piece of paper, and you will need a pencil or a pen to do some writing.

But also, you will need your brain to do some really good learning to do some really good thinking.

So if you need some paper or a pen, please pause the video and go and get whatever you need and then come back and press play.

Okay, so hopefully we're all ready to go with everything that we need.

So, as I mentioned earlier, we're going to start with a writing warm up today.

And we're going to start with a writing warmup looking at word class.

So first of all, we're going to review word class.

And we're going to think about four different types of words.

And you can see them here on the screen.

We've got nouns, we've got adjectives, we've got verbs, and we've got adverbs.

So for different types, so before we do anything else, before we do any sorting of words, it's really important that we think back to what these different words mean.

So the first ones are nouns, and I'm going to do a lot of my turn your turn in this lesson.

So my turn first nouns, now your turn, well done.

So a noun is a PPT, a person, a place or a thing.

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

Can you say that? Really good job, okay.

Then we've got adjectives.

Now, adjectives and nouns go really closely together.

Because adjectives describe nouns they go really closely together.

And if you want to give more detail about your noun, you can add in an adjective or two to tell whoever you're writing for a little bit more about your noun.

So for example, if my noun was the book, because is it a person, a place or a thing.

Yes, it's a thing.

So if my noun was a book, then I could say the interesting book, and that is my adjective that gives extra information on my noun.

Then we've got verbs.

My turn your turn, verbs.

Good job.

A verb is a doing word, or a being word.

So doing words are actions, anything like the one I'm doing funny, anything that is an action is a verb, but also being words because if they if you are something that is a verb so I am, you are.

Those two words are and am are both being words, okay? So they are both verbs really well done.

And then finally, we've got adverbs.

Now just like adjectives and nouns go together, adverbs and verbs go together, and we can hear it in the name, add verb.

Because adverbs had extra information to verbs, they describe verbs.

So, I have got eight words here on the screen.

We're going to read each one using my turn your turn, and then you'll have a go at pausing the video and sorting them into the correct group.

Let's go.

The first one is dragon ,good job.

Flew ,carefully , village, anxiously, brave, remote, ran.

Now that word remote might be unfamiliar to you, you might not know the meaning.

If something is remote, and the location that we're going to talk about the place we're going to talk about today is remote.

It's far away from everything else.

And it's very, very isolated, which means there's nothing else around.

So can you pause the video and have a go at sorting those words into the correct group.

Once you've done that, you can press play, and we'll look at the answers together, off you go.

Okay, welcome back.

So let's have a look and see if we did the same thing.

So when I'm thinking about nouns, I spotted two and you might have spotted that every single word class had two words in it.

So the two nouns that I spotted were dragon, and village, two nouns.

The two adjectives that I spotted were brave and remote.

Remember describing that something is really far away from anything else.

I spotted two verbs as, well did you? I spotted through and ran, well done.

That means that the last two must be adverbs.

And that's a top tip for you because adverbs often end in ly.

So you can carefully run, being careful not to trip over.

So it gives more details about how you are doing your action.

Really good job.

If you've got some of those if you didn't get them all, don't worry.

The more we practise, the better you'll get at this well done.

Okay, so let's think about our new unit of learning How to Train Your Dragon.

Some of you might already know the stories and the film's really, really well.

But some of you may never have seen them.

And that's completely fine because we're going to be looking at some short video clips together.

When I say clip, I mean short bit of the film that we can use to help us inspire our writing.

So let's find out a little bit more about the author of these fantastic books.

So the picture that you can see in the corner, is a picture of the book cover of the first book in the How to Train Your Dragon series.

A series means there are lots of different books that Cressida Cowell, the author that you can see there in the picture has written and she's got two really fantastic skills.

She's written the books so she's an author, but she's also an illustrator.

So she's also illustrated the picture she's drawn the pictures in all of her books.

Isn't that fantastic? I wish I could be an author and an illustrator.

Those are really great skills to have.

Now she's currently something called the children's laureate, the Waterstones Children's Laureate.

And she's had that role since 2019.

So last year, all the way until 2022, she's got this role.

And it's a really special job, because it's like being a representative for children's reading.

So that's a really big job.

And it's a really great job because she gets to inspire lots of children to do lots of really, really great reading.

So she is the author of the How to Train Your Dragon series.

And in this unit, we're going to be looking at the film version of this book.

So we're not going to be reading the book together.

But if you guys want to read it at home, I really recommend it, but we're going to be looking at the film version.

So let's think about the setting for this exciting story.

Where is it set? Where in the world is it set? Well, the setting of the narrative takes place on the fictional Isle of Berk.

And when I say fictional, it means that it's a made up place.

It's a wild, remote island, where Vikings and mythical creatures dragons live side by side.

So it's an island that's very far from everything else where lots of exciting things happen.

Okay, now our main character who we're going to meet in a moment, he describes this island right at the beginning of the film.

And he says, "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." What do you think? Let's read that together one more time.

Are you ready? Let's go.

"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." What do you think happened at the moment? What do you think that our main character thinks about the place where he lives? Do you think that he likes it? Or do you think that he doesn't like it? And why did you think that? Have a little think to yourself, I'm going to do the same.

Well, what do you think? Does he like it or does not like it? Can you share with me? I think he doesn't like it.

Lots of different things about the use of the word hopeless, freezing to death.

That doesn't sound good, and the word misery that makes me think of someone who's really sad.

So that tells me that the author is certainly at the beginning of the story does not like the setting of the story.

Now, I've told you that it's a made up place, but it's inspired by a real place.

So it's inspired where the author Cressida Cowell used to go on summer holidays with her family.

She used to go on the west coast of Scotland, in the inner Hebrides, and let me show you where that is.

So this is a map of the British Isles.

We've got England at the bottom on the right hand side and we've got Scotland at the top and where my red circle has appeared, that's where the Inner Hebrides are.

So she used to go on holiday with her family to a very small island in the Inner Hebrides, and it was completely uninhabited.

That means that nobody else lived on that island.

They had no electricity, they had no television, they had the open space and lots and lots of time to use their imagination and to use their creativity.

And all of the time that the author Cressida Cowell spent on this island was her inspiration for writing the book series.

So she used to go off, she said in interviews that her parents used to say, come back when you're hungry and don't fall off a cliff.

So she said that lots of times, and that means that she used to go off thinking about dragons and thinking about Vikings that come up in this story, and her imagination ran wild and that's how she wrote the stories.

So although it's not a real place, the Isle of Berk it is inspired by a real place, which means that lots of things about it are very similar to the place where Cressida Cowell spent a lot of time when she was young girl.

Okay, so one has to think about the setting that we've just described.

It's wild, it's remote.

We've got that quote from the character.

What are your first thoughts about the setting? Do you think it's a welcoming place? Why do you think that or why not? Do you think it's somewhere that you'd like to spend some time? Why or why not? So I'd like you to pause the video and try and think of your own answer to that.

And I think that we can really challenge ourselves by writing our explanation including the word because so I think it is exciting, because and then explain using a full sentence remembering your full stop at the end.

Or perhaps you might say, I think it sounds scary, because and then explain your answer with a full stop at the end.

So pause the video and write your full sentence for me now, off you go.

Okay, really, really great job.

So let's have a look at what I wrote, I wrote two options.

The first one, I didn't think it is exciting because there are many opportunities for adventure.

The second one, I think it is scary, because it's so wild and no one else lives there.

So really well done.

If you wrote your sentence down, have a little check now have you got your capital letter? Have you got your full stop? Have you got your because in the middle , before you gave your explanation, well done.

Fantastic, okay.

So let's move on to think about the characters in our story.

Like I said before, some of you might know them really well, but some of you might not.

So these are our two main characters.

We've got Toothless, who is the dragon.

And we've got Hiccup, who is the young Viking.

Have you heard that word Viking before? What do you already know about Vikings? You might feel like you don't know very much at all.

Or you might feel like you know a lot.

I'd like you to pause the video and just take a note.

What do you know about Vikings already? Off you go.

Okay, welcome back.

I wonder what things you came up with about Vikings.

So, first of all, let's think about this.

Are Vikings from the past? Are they from the present? Are they from right now? Or are they from the future? Still to come? What do you think? Let's have a look here, we've got an extra little clue with our timeline, should we say after 3123 Vikings are from the past, well done.

So you can see here on my timeline that I've got the ancient Romans which some of you might have learned about in school.

There are the Anglo-Saxons that you might have learned about as well.

And then we've got the Vikings, the Vikings were ran from 793 AD to 1066 AD.

Now that was a very long time ago.

This timeline continues all the way to present day going past lots of other milestones in history before it gets to us.

So Vikings are from the past.

So let's have a look.

So let's have a look at this picture of a Viking.

This is an illustration of a Viking from How to Train Your Dragon.

I want you to look at it really closely.

And I want you to write down at least two things that you notice about this Viking.

It could be about something that he's wearing.

It could be about what he looks like.

So pause the video and do that for me now.

Okay, welcome back.

So I wonder what things you noticed about this Viking, so I'm going to show you some of the things that I noticed.

I wonder if we found the same things.

So I thought that he had an intimidating an angry face, intimidating means that he makes me feel a little bit scared.

Can you show me an intimidating and angry face? Well done, I did mine as well.

I noticed that he has a helmet with horns on which lots of people often show Vikings wearing helmets with horns in pictures.

I noticed that he's got a big fur cloak on his back, perhaps is from an animal that he hunted to keep him warm.

I noticed that he's got a wooden leg.

I wonder if in the context of this story, his wooden leg came from an accident with a dragon.

And then finally, I noticed that he's very big.

He's very bulky.

That means he's very, very big.

And he's really strong.

He looks like he's big, he's got big, strong muscles.

I wonder if we found any of the same things, well done.

Okay, so let me tell you a little bit more about Vikings.

Vikings are really well known for being fierce and fearless warriors.

That means that they weren't scared of anything that suffered less fear less.

That tells me that they were without fear.

They were really skilled fighters.

And they were resourceful people.

That means that they were able to look after themselves.

They grew their own food, they built their own ships.

They were really, really skilled.

They travelled really long distances on their Viking long ships, and I've got a little picture of their long ships there.

Now Vikings came from Scandinavia, the modern countries of Scandinavia are Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

And we can see those that I'm going to look with the laser pointer.

So we've got in the middle here Sweden and we've got on this side Norway, and we've got Finland to sorry, we've got Denmark down here.

Sometimes people include Finland and Iceland in the list of countries.

These are called Nordic countries, but the three countries that form part of Scandinavia are Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Okay, so let's meet our main character, our main character who is a Viking.

Our main character is called Hiccup.

My turn your turn, Hiccup.

Good job.

Now Hiccup is a Viking.

Do you think he's a stereotypical Viking? That works quite hard, my turn your turn stereotypical, good job.

Now to think of what that word means we need to understand what the stereotype means.

A stereotype means that when there's a group of people like Vikings, for example, we give everybody in that group certain characteristics.

So a stereotype for a Viking might be that they're all really big and strong.

Or it might be that they all wear helmets with horns.

So lets think about whether he's a stereotypical Viking.

So some other examples of stereotypes to help you understand is that all boys like football.

Now I've taught lots of boys who don't like football.

So that's a stereotype.

It doesn't mean it's true about everybody who is part of that group.

Or a stereotype that all girls like pink, I know lots of girls who don't like pink.

Or the stereotype that all Vikings are fierce.

So have a little look at Hiccup.

I've got three different pictures of him there.

Think about what we think that when we think of Vikings, we think about fierce, we think about strong, we think about big and muscly and scary.

Do you think that Hiccup is a stereotypical Viking? Can you pause the video and have a think.

Okay, welcome back.

So I wonder what you thought often in the stories, Hiccup actually doesn't feel like he fits in with the other Vikings, he feels a little bit different.

So if that's something that might come up in some of our writing in this unit.

So let's have a go at writing some sentences thinking about our main character Hiccup.

Do you think that he looks like a typical Viking? So what did you think about when you had some thinking time and you pause the video? Did you think that he looked like a typical Viking? Why did you think that why or why not? So let's have a look at what we could write.

So you might think that he does look like a typical Viking, in which case you would start your sentence with, I think he does look like a typical Viking because, but you might think that he doesn't, in which case you might start your sentence like the second one that I've got below.

So I'd like you to pause the video and complete one those sentences for me now, off you go.

Okay, welcome back.

So, I wonder what you thought.

Let me show you some examples of something you could have written.

So you might have said, I think Hiccup does look like a typical Viking because he's wearing furs, and is holding a shield.

You might have said, I think Hiccup doesn't look like a typical Viking because he looks a bit unsure of himself.

He doesn't look fierce and ferocious.

Really well done, fantastic.

Okay, so we've got some other characters to think about.

That the clue is in the title.

Who have we not yet talked about? We've talked about Vikings, we haven't talked about dragons.

Well done.

So do you know anything about dragons? What do you already know about dragons? Pause the video, have a think and you can write down some ideas if you want.

Off you go.

Okay, welcome back.

So I wonder what you already know about dragons.

Dragons are mythical creatures, my 10 year old 10 mythical creatures.

Good job.

That means they are a creature that has been talked about in stories that have been passed down through time.

These creatures sometimes have magical powers, they can fly.

They've got big, strong, powerful wings to help them fly.

They can be quite scary, too.

They might have red eyes like this one in the picture.

They definitely have sharp teeth and sharp claws.

They often have big strong tails, and their skin is scaly and reptilian so it means that they look a lot like reptiles like snakes or lizards, on their skin, but they are obviously much, much bigger and much, much stronger.

And something else that I haven't got on here, which maybe you guys wrote down, in your notes is that often they can breath out fire.

Do you think you'd like to bump into a dragon? I'm not sure, I'm not sure, you know.

They sound very exciting, but I'm not sure that I'd want to make friends with one.

Okay, you've worked so hard.

I wonder if we can think back to all of our learning that we've just done.

So in a moment, I'm going to ask you to pause your video and to create a mind map, which means writing down everything that you've learned in this lesson, you might look back at the sentences that you wrote down to help you, you could include information on who the author of the story is, you could include information on the setting, or on the characters as well.

So if you're a little bit stuck about what a mind map looks like, you can put the title of the story in the middle like I've done there, and you can start to just add different facts that you have.

So I've added two facts there already to get you thinking.

I've added who the author is Cressida Cowell and illustrator.

And I've added where the story is set, and you can build on that knowledge.

When you finished, you can press play and I can show you some of the things that I wrote down and you can see if we wrote the same things.

Okay, pause the video and complete your task now.

Okay, welcome back.

Let's check and compare what we wrote down.

So, I had the two bits of information that I showed you before, and I also put some information about the setting being inspired by the author's family holidays.

I talked about the fact that the main character is called Hiccup, and but he is a Viking.

And also the Vikings are remembered in history for being fierce warriors.

But Hiccup is not a typical Viking so he doesn't always fit in.

And then finally I wrote that lots dragons also live on the island part.

My goodness well done for all of your hard work! You have worked so hard in this lesson you've learned lots of new information, and you should be very, very proud of yourself.

So give yourself a big big pat on the back.

Well done.

Thank you so much for joining me and for trying your best with your learning.

If you'd like to, please share what you've learned with your parent or carer.

I bet they'd love to see it.

I hope that you enjoyed the lesson and I look forward to seeing you soon, bye.