Lesson video

Hello, it's Mrs. Smart.

Welcome to our last lesson in this English unit, all about "Mirror" by Jeannie Baker.

In today's lesson, we're going to be using everything we've learned so far to identify some of the themes and messages of these stories.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or some lined paper, a pen or pencil, and some coloured pencils or felt tips if you've got any.

If you haven't got any of those items with you right now, just pause the recording and get yourself ready.

In this lesson, we're going to start with an introduction to the text and a recap of what we have learnt so far in this unit.

Then we're going to explore the Moroccan half of the text and look at the evening routine of the family.

Then we'll move on to look at the Australian half of the text and look at the family's evening routine in Australia.

Lastly, we're going to pull everything together that we have learnt so far and think about the themes and the messages of this book.

Lastly, we'll end today's lesson with your independent task.

Here is the text that we have been exploring throughout this whole unit.

It is called "Mirror" written and illustrated by Jeannie Baker with thanks to Walker Books for granting us permission to use this book.

And as you know, there are two stories that run parallel to each other in this book.

We have a family based in Sydney, Australia, that you can see on the front cover of the book.

And then we have a family who are based in Valley of Roses, Morocco, in North Africa that you can see on the back cover of the book.

And we follow both of these families through a normal day in their lives.

And this is a really good way that we can make comparisons between the two places and the two families.

And think about the similarities and the differences in their lives.

Let's have one last recap to remind ourselves where Morocco and Australia are on our world map.

Can you point to Morocco now? Excellent, there it is.

Morocco is in North Africa where that pink star has just appeared.

Can you point to Australia, or be even more precise and point to Sydney, Australia? Excellent, here it is.

That's roughly where Sydney in Australia is.

Here is the introduction to the two books that explains the story a little bit more.

There are two boys and two families in this book.

One family lives in Australia and one lives in Morocco, North Africa.

The lives of the two boys and their families look very different from each other.

And they are different.

But some things connects them, just as some things are the same for all families, no matter where they live.

And we're going to particularly be thinking about the themes and messages from both of these stories at the end of this lesson.

Here is one of the images that we explored in our previous lesson when we were looking at the two different shopping experiences of the family in Australia and the family in Morocco.

Here you can see the father and the son in Morocco visiting a market, and they buy and sell different products.

Then we can see the shopping experience of the family in Australia.

And here, the father and the son go to a hardware shop because they are building a fireplace in their home.

This is the next page that I want you to explore in this lesson.

This is when they return from the market and you can then see their evening routine.

That means what they do on a normal evening in their home.

Look really carefully at this first picture.

And then I want you to explore these smaller pictures.

And remember, when we're looking at these smaller pictures in the Moroccan text, we're going to read them or look at them from right to left rather than from left to right.

Because in Morocco, lots of people speak and write Arabic, and when you are reading Arabic you actually read it from right to left.

Whereas we read English from left to right.

So we're going to do the same thing with the smaller pictures at the bottom of the page.

Think really carefully about what can you see and what are the characters doing? Although you can't always see their whole bodies, you can see their arms, which gives you a clue as to which characters are doing what.

Pause the recording and write down your ideas now.

Well done.

Well, I can see at the top of the page, the father and the son returning home with the different things that they've bought, with that large cube package that we saw in our previous lesson.

And we can see the mother and the baby welcoming them home.

And it looks like she's balancing something on her head.

I wonder what that is.

Maybe it's some washing.

Then we can have a look at the smaller pictures at the bottom of the page.

And we can see some of the details of what they get up to in the evening.

I can see the mother, the dark blue sleeves, looks like she is preparing some food, maybe peeling some vegetables, stirring something in a pot, making something with flour.

Maybe they're making some of the flatbreads that they had for breakfast again.

And then I can see the father with the pale lilac, pale blue coloured top, he looks like he's pouring some tea and then feeding the animals as well.

Remember, we saw those animals in their morning routine.

But really interestingly, I can see what is coming out of the package.

And it looks to me like it might be a computer.

Here we go.

Now we can see it was indeed a computer that they bought in the markets.

Have a look carefully at this image.

What can you see? And what are the characters doing? Pause the recording and write down your ideas now.

Well done.

Well, of course we can see they've set up the computer in the corner of the room, and then we can see the family eating dinner together.

And remember, this family in Morocco is a bit larger than the Australian family.

We've got the mother and father and their son and the baby, but then we've also got three more adults.

We're not sure who they are.

They might be grandparents, they might be aunts and uncles, or maybe they're just friends, but they obviously live together in a larger group.

And we can see them eating their dinner.

They look like they're all sharing from the same plate.

And interestingly, they're sitting on the floor.

Their table is much smaller than what you might be used to or from what we saw in the Australian text.

Here is the last picture in the Moroccan family's evening routine.

What can you see happening in this picture? And what are the characters doing? Pause the recording and write down your ideas now.

Excellent, well done.

Well, if we have a look out the window, it looks like it is now nighttime because I can see the sky is much darker and the moon is in the sky and I can see the father and the son enjoying their computer for the very first time.

And it looks like all of the family are watching on, very, very interested to see what the computer can do.

Maybe it's the first time they've ever had a computer in their own home.

Can you describe the family's evening routine? What did they do in the evening? The mum, the dad, and the boy.

Could you write a sentence to explain what each of those three characters did in the evening? Pause the recording and write your sentences now.

Here we can see the next page in the Australian story.

And again, we're going to look at these images and think about the family's evening routine.

This is when they have returned from their shopping and they are doing their normal evening routine or their normal evening jobs.

Have a look carefully at the top image first of all, and then you can have a look at the smaller images at the bottom of the page.

Remember, this time you're going to look at the images from left to right.

What can you see? And what are the characters doing? Write down your ideas now.

Well done.

Well, I can see the boy returning home and he's giving his mum what looks like a flower.

I think I saw that flower earlier on in the story.

Do you remember seeing it? Then if we have a look at the smaller images, we can see some of the details of what the family get up to in the evening.

So I can see the mum pouring some tea.

Now I remember the Moroccan family having some tea as well, so that's similar.

It looks like she's putting some washing or getting some washing out of the machine, clearing the table.

And then instead of making dinner, like the Moroccan family, it looks to me like the mum is calling for a takeaway.

The takeaway is called Fish Bowl, so maybe they're having fish and chips.

Then I can see the father carrying on with his DIY, his home improvement.

He looks like he's building a wall and sweeping up, probably to build that fireplace that they were making at the beginning of the day.

And then I can see the young boy looks like he's having a drink and playing with his younger sibling.

He looks like he's writing something and then playing on the computer.

Now, that links with the Moroccan family 'cause they were looking at a computer as well.

Here is the next image in the Australian family's story.

And here we can see the family looks like they're having dinner together.

What can you see in these images? Have a really careful look.

And what are the characters doing? Pause the recording and write down your ideas now.

Okay, so I can see the family eating what looks like fish and chips.

But this time they're eating at a larger table or a taller table and they're sitting on chairs, which is a little bit different from the Moroccan family.

But they're all coming together at the end of the day, just like the Moroccan family did.

And then in the background, we can also see the fireplace that the father has been working on all day.

Now, at the bottom of the page, we can see where they unwrap the rug or the carpet that they bought earlier from the shop.

Here is the final image in the Australian family's story.

Have a really careful look.

What can you see? And what are the characters doing? Pause the recording and write down your ideas now.

Okay, I can see behind the family the fireplace that the father has been working on all day.

And it looks like it's completely finished now.

Then I can see the family sitting on their rug or their carpet that they've bought that day, and having a look at a picture that the young boy has drawn.

And it looks like he's imagined his family flying on his magic carpet.

So he's imagining that the carpet that they've bought today is actually a magic carpet.

Can you describe the family's evening routine? What did the different characters do when they returned from the shops? The mum, the dad, the boy.

Could you write a sentence to describe what each character was doing that evening? Pause the recording and write your sentences now.

We have now read or looked at the images in both halves of the story from beginning to end.

We're going to think about the themes and the messages that appear in both of these stories.

Theme means the subject or main idea of a work of literature or art.

Synonyms are subject, topic, idea.

And in a sentence, we could use it like this.

The main theme of the book is friendship.

What are the main themes of "Mirror"? Think about both stories.

Pause the recording and write down your ideas now.

I think there are a few themes in the story of "Mirror." One of the first themes is family.

Family is really, really important in both stories, and family is obviously important to the characters.

The families come together at the beginning and the end of the day.

And we also see the father and son going on a journey and going shopping together as well.

Community, community means the people that you live among.

So they live with their family, but then there are other people that live around them.

People that they see when they go shopping for example, that is part of their community.

Culture and traditions.

Both families have their own culture and traditions.

That means things that they do all the time that are special to that family or special to that country.

And home is really important.

We see their homes at the beginning and at the end of the story.

They're very, very important to the families.

What is the message of this story? What could we learn from this story? Pause the recording and write down your ideas now.

I wrote a little paragraph to explain the message and what I think that we can learn from this story.

The two countries and cultures are very different.

However, by seeing the parallel lives of the families it is clear that they are essentially the same.

Although they live very different lifestyles in very different landscapes, both families care for each other and belong to a community.

This shows me that we are all the same in the ways that really matter.

So it doesn't matter that their homes look different, their shops look different, their countries look different, because what really matters is being with the people that we love and care for, and the families spend lots of time together looking after each other and talking.

And that's what's really, really important.

Material objects aren't important, but people that we love and care for are really, really important.

For your task today, I would like you to write your own version of "Mirror." You know that this story has no words in it at all.

It is only in pictures.

So could you write a version of "Mirror"? You could write the story based on the images in the book that we've looked at, so you could write a story for the Moroccan family, and you could write a story for the Australian family.

Alternatively, you could create your own "Mirror" story using your own life and comparing to another country or culture that you know about.

So you could draw images of things that you do in your normal day, and then compare it to another country or culture and what they do in a normal day.

You could draw images or you could write the story yourself.

Congratulations, you have completed your lesson and you have completed this whole unit.

Please feel free to share your work with Oak National.

If you'd like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

It has been a pleasure to teach you throughout this English unit, and I hope you enjoy the rest of your learning on Oak National Academy.

Goodbye.