Lesson video

Hello, my name is Miss.

Vincent.

And I'm going to be teaching you today for this writing lesson.

In today's lesson, we're going to think really carefully about our build-up scene from the film, "How To Train Your Dragon", which is based on the book by the same title by the author, Cressida Cowell.

So in today's lesson, we're going to think of the first half of the buildup, and we're going to plan it really carefully thinking about all the description with nouns and adjectives and all the action with verbs and adverbs.

We're going to put it all in a plan so that it can help us with a future writing lesson.

Okay, let's get started, off we go.

Let's have a look at today's agenda.

So we're going to start with a writing warmup, where we're going to be thinking about describing a setting really precisely using precise adjectives.

And then we're going to move on to watch the section of the clip that we're going to be planning today.

After that, we're going to have a go at already retelling the narrative, so making sure that we say our full sentences, thinking about the part that we are retelling, and then finally, we're going to move on to our planning.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or a piece of paper to write on.

You'll need a pen or a pencil to write with.

And you'll also need a ruler today to help you draw some straight lines.

If you don't have a ruler, don't worry, it doesn't matter.

It's helpful, but it's not essential.

If there's anything that you need to go and get for this lesson, please pause the video and press Play when you come back.

Great, so hopefully we are ready to go.

Let's get started.

So, as I mentioned, our writing warmup today is all about precise vocabulary.

So I've got a picture of the setting of our next part of the story of the buildup.

And I'd like you to have a think about how you would describe this setting.

Can you come up with as many noun phrases as possible.

If you're thinking, "Hmm, I'm not sure what the noun phrase is," I'll help you.

So I'd like you to come up with as many phrases, remember a phrase doesn't contain a verb, a clause contains a verb.

As many noun phrases as you can.

So adjective, adjective, noun.

So for example, let's have a look.

I've got an example here "The calm, still water".

And don't forget to include your comma between your two adjectives.

Off you go.

Fantastic, I wonder how many you came up with.

So let me show you some more of the ones that I came up with.

I have "The illuminated, bare rock".

And if something is illuminated, it means it's lit up.

"The quiet, deserted valley".

"The wild, clambering plants".

"The tall, shadowy trees".

"The steep, dangerous descent".

A descent is something that comes down and you can see that from the perspective that we're looking at, if we were to walk down there, it would be quite a steep and dangerous descent.

Well done for coming up with lots of noun phrases.

In the next part of our warmup, I'd like you to edit and improve the underlined words, using more precise vocabulary choices than I've chosen.

So I'm going to read you the sentence.

"The wet lake was still, and only the noise of nature could be heard".

So I've described the way the lake, sorry, as wet.

I think I could do a little bit better.

And I've talked about the noise of nature.

So I want you to pause the video and have a go improving my sentence.

You might want to improve other parts, but in particular, can you make some more precise vocabulary choices for those two words, off you go? Okay, so I had to think at the same time as you and I thought of some more precise choices as well.

The wet lake isn't precise.

I know that a lake is wet, because it's made of water.

So I've chosen the word tranquil.

It's actually a Mrs. Wordsmith word.

So my turn, your turn.

Tranquil.

Tranquil.

Fantastic.

The word tranquil means peaceful or blissfully quiet.

So somewhere really relaxing, somewhere really calm.

And I think when I look at this picture, I see a lovely tranquil lake and it's still, because the water's not moving.

So now let's think about the noise of nature.

When I think about noise, it doesn't necessarily make me think of something pleasant.

And I think that the noise of nature, sometimes it's pleasant to listen to perhaps some tweeting birds or some swaying trees.

So I've tried to improve that word as well.

And I've gone with the sounds of nature rather than the noise of nature.

And actually, I think I want to expand even more.

And I went with "The gentle sounds of nature", because the tranquil place would have gentle, peaceful, relaxing sounds like that.

So I'm going to reread my edited and improved sentence.

"The tranquil lake was still and only the gentle sounds of nature could be heard".

Okay, I'm much happier with that version than the previous one.

I've got one more sentence.

"The sun was on the white, bumpy rock face".

So, "The sun's on the white, bumpy rock face".

Pause the video and have a go at improving the underlined words, off you go.

Okay, let's think about this.

"Was on the white, bumpy rock face".

So I think I can choose a really precise verb to replace "Was on".

So, the sun lit up or perhaps that word that we talked about before, "The sun illuminated the white, bumpy rock face".

And bumpy, bumpy's a fine word, but I think we can be even more precise.

And in our previous outcome for this unit, for "How To Train Your Dragon", we talked a lot about the cliffs and the rocks.

And I think that we could go with the word "Rugged" which is also a Mrs. Wordsmith word.

So my turn, your turn.

Rugged.

One more time, rugged.

And if something is rugged, it's rough, it's uneven, it's craggy.

So I can see when I look at the picture that it's not as smooth rock face.

And when I talk about rock face, I mean, the part that we can see that is rock right at the back of the valley.

I can see that it's bumpy, I can see there are some sharp bits, so uneven and craggy and the word "Rugged" is much more precise.

And when I read it one more time, "The sun illuminated the white, rugged rock face".

Much better.

Okay.

So now we're going to move on to watch the section of the clip that we will be planning today.

So watch really carefully so that you know exactly what part we're going to think about.

Let's watch.

Okay, so that's quite a short section of narrative and that's because we're going to write our build up over two sections.

So this is the first of two sections.

So it's half of our buildup.

And in a previous lesson, we watched the longer version.

So if you're sitting thinking that this there should be more of this, that's why we're writing it over two sections.

So now we're going to have a go at orally retelling the narrative.

That just means using our voices to retell what we saw and trying to be as descriptive as possible.

So I've got four pictures here to help us retell this section of the narrative.

So I've got Hiccup coming into the valley.

I've got the dragon crouching behind him coming down from his rock and eventually Hiccup extending his arm with the fish.

So like we've done in previous lessons, we're going to have a go at describing what's happening in each picture and retelling the narrative.

And you can tell it to your hand, you can tell it to a soft toy, you can choose to do whatever you'd like.

It might be that it's a bit silly, but it's really useful to practise saying sentences out loud.

So my turn first.

"The young, fearful Viking hesitantly made his way into the valley.

He tiptoed by the still, calm lake as the sun illuminated the craggy rock face beside him.

Unbeknown to him, a fearsome, vicious dragon lurked behind him and watched his every move.

As soon as Hiccup noticed him, the dragon leapt down off his rock and began to growl, a low, deep growl.

He didn't take his eyes off Hiccup and began to walk around him in a circle.

Hesitantly, Hiccup extended a shaky arm and offered the dragon, a slimy, fish to eat".

Your turn.

Pause the video and have a go at describing what's happening in these four pictures as though you're retelling the story with as much detail as possible.

Off you go.

Okay, really well done for giving it a go.

It's a really useful skill.

The more we retell a story, the easier it is to remember each part and the more adjectives we can come up with.

Well done.

So now we're going to move on to the planning section of our lesson.

So I'm going to show you what I need you to do for me now.

But before we do that actually, let's revise our four different word classes.

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

Can you remember how we remember what a noun is? Can you remember the rhyme? Okay, my turn, your turn.

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

Great job.

Let's see the adjective.

An adjective describes a word.

It tells you what it's like.

Fantastic.

A verb is a doing or a being word.

If you do it or you are it, then the word is a verb.

Good job.

And then finally, an adverb describes a verb, often ends in LY.

Fantastic.

Now, the reason that I put these four word classes in here is because they're going to be really, really useful today.

We're going to think about nouns and adjectives that go together, and we're going to think about verbs and adverbs that go together as well.

So now, what I'd like you to do is prepare a sheet for your planning.

This is why, if you've got a ruler, this is a useful thing to have now.

I'd like you to use your sheets and you can use it in landscape.

That means where it's no longer along the top, rather than along the side.

Use it in landscape and you can create a table, like the one that you can see on the screen.

Your table needs to have three columns and five rows.

So the top row, the 5th row is for your headings.

So the headings you can see on the screen.

So I'd like you to do that now.

Make sure that it takes up the whole of your page so that you can take lots of notes.

Make sure that it's neat so that you can see where you're supposed to write your different word classes, okay? So heading line at the top and then four rows, and it needs to be three columns.

You can do this, pause the video off you go.

Wow, I'm impressed.

If you've got your table, you should give yourself a big pat on the back.

There's lots of lines to draw, really well done.

So you should have three headings in your top row.

You should have events, so what happened? You should have descriptions of the nouns and the adjectives.

And then in our final column, you can have your actions, so your verbs and adverbs.

Let's think about each scene in detail.

So today, we're going to be planning the four different scenes that we had a go at retelling one at a time, we're going to be thinking about what happened.

We're going to be thinking about how we can describe it with nouns and adverbs.

And then finally, we're going to be thinking about verbs and adverbs to describe the action.

One at a time, we're going to re-watch each of these scenes.

And then we're going to think about our planning.

So our very first scene, you can see I've got a little extra column than you have.

And that's just a little picture to help us remind what scene, remind us, sorry, what scene this is.

But I've got the same as you.

So this is your top row from your table.

It's just a little bit bigger.

So we're going to re-watch the first scene, the scene where Hiccup comes into the valley.

And if you want to, you can already now write a very simple sentence in the event of what happened about Hiccup entered the valley.

Where you could write "Hiccup tiptoed into the valley".

And when we watch the scene, we're going to think about what we can describe.

So what are all the different things that we can see? So in this first scene, I know I can describe the rocks.

I can describe the water.

I can describe the plants.

And we're also going to think about what verbs and adverbs we can use when we're describing the action.

So I'm going to describe the way that Hiccup is moving.

And perhaps you might describe birds singing or anything that you can hear.

You could turn that into a verb and an adverb.

So I'm going to put on this tiny clip now for you to watch, you might want to skip back and watch it a few times.

And as you're watching, you can start to add your nouns and adjectives.

You can start to add your verbs and adverbs so that you feel a lot more confident once you're watching it, lots of times.

So let's watch this first scene.

Okay, fantastic.

So very, very short section, but remember you can skip back and watch it several times, if you feel like you need to watch it a little bit more.

So I wonder what different nouns and adjectives and verbs and adverbs you came up with.

I'm going to share with you what I thought of.

I thought that it was a desert, "A peaceful, sorry, deserted valley.

So we've got two adjectives and a noun.

So the noun phrase in our warm up, we've got "Illuminated rock face," so that wall, we can call it a rock face and remembering that word "Illuminated," means it's lit up.

We could see "Calm, shimmering water", and that's a Mrs. Wordsmith word, "Shimmering" that means, glittering almost in the sunlight.

Then for my verbs and adverbs, I thought we could say that, "Hiccup tiptoed hesitantly".

And "Hesitant" was a word that we've come across before when you're a little bit unsure.

"He glanced around curiously".

So we can see him looking around curiously.

He wants to find out what's in this valley.

And "He held the fish tightly".

So if you'd like to pause the video to copy down any of these noun phrases or verbs and adverbs, then absolutely go ahead and pause the video and do that now.

Fantastic, let's move on to the next scene.

So in a moment, we're going to re-watch the short clip of the next scene, and we're going to think really carefully about what we can see.

So you might want to, before we start watching, write down one simple sentence to say what happens in this part of the story.

I've written the sentence "Toothless crouched and watched Hiccup".

So I've written that sentence there, just to describe so I can remember which event this is.

And in a moment will play the video and you can look for nouns and adjectives and verbs and adverbs.

Remember, nouns and adjectives to describe what you can see and verbs and adverbs to describe the action, so what the different characters are doing.

Okay, let's watch this scene.

Great, okay.

So, I wonder what you came up with.

Remember, it's a short clip, so if you need to skip back and watch it a couple of times, that's absolutely fine.

So let me share with you the nouns and adjectives that I came up with.

I thought that we could describe the dragon as "The suspicious, crouching dragon, the wary, anxious boy", remembering that word "Wary" that we came across in a previous lesson as well, that also means that you're not quite sure.

So you're being a little bit careful, because you're not 100% comfortable.

"The deep, piercing stare".

So you can see that the dragon is looking really, really carefully at Hiccup and his stare is deep and piercing.

Let's think about the verbs and adverbs.

"Toothless, crouched patiently".

So he's waiting patiently, he crouched patiently.

"He watched Hiccup carefully", he definitely is watching him carefully.

And "Hiccup searched nervously".

Okay, those are my ideas.

If you'd like to add any of my ideas to your plan, then please pause the video now and do that.

Okay, great.

Let's move on to the next picture.

So this is the third part that we are planning today, and it's the section of the story where Toothless comes down off the rock and starts growling at Hiccup.

So I've written my sentence to say what's happening in this part of the story.

And I've written "Toothless jumped down from the rock and circled Hiccup".

So make sure that as part of your planning, you write your sentence to say what's happened in this part of the story.

So let's watch the clip.

Let's think about description with nouns and adjectives and action with verbs and adverbs, let's watch.

Okay, great.

I wonder what your description and your action was.

Let me share with you some thoughts that I had.

So I described Toothless sorry, as "The angry, menacing dragon".

Menacing means that it's a little bit like threatening.

He's sort of growling to get Hiccup to back off.

"The frightened young Viking".

And a "Low, threatening growl".

So I'm describing the sound that Toothless is making, a "Low, threatening growl".

And then, for my verbs and adverbs "Toothless jumped swiftly, he growled menacingly".

and then "Hiccup backed away fearfully".

So he's scared, so he's backing away.

If you need to add anything to your plan, please pause the video and do that now.

Okay.

Our final planning section for today.

So just like before, you'll need to write a simple sentence, just to remind yourself what part of the narrative this is.

I've written "Hiccup offered Toothless the fish".

So that I remember that this row tells me about when Hiccup offered Toothless the fish.

So in a moment, we're going to watch the short clip, and we're going to think about the description and the action, just like with all the previous pictures and all the previous sections of the narrative.

Remember, you can skip back and watch it several times so that you can have lots and lots of ideas, let's watch.

Okay, fantastic.

So, let me share with you some of the different ideas that I came up with.

So I described his hand, it was an outstretched shaky hand holding the fish.

"The pungent, slimy fish".

My turn, your turn, pungent.

One more time, pungent.

If something it's pungent, it's really, really smelly.

And you can see in the Mrs. Wordsmith picture that the hippo's socks or trainers are really, really smelly.

They've got big green smell coming out of them.

So sometimes if a fish is a bit old, it might be pungent.

So he's holding out "The pungent, slimy fish".

And I've described the dragon as, "The curious, starving dragon", because remember, he's really hungry at this point in the story, because he's not able to fly out of the valley.

Let's think about our actions, so our verbs and adverbs.

So "Hiccup timidly offered the fish".

Timid is another word that means shy.

So he's shy and he offered the fish.

He wasn't very confident and he didn't sort of put it right up against Toothless' mouth.

He sort of timidly offered the fish.

And Toothless approached curiously.

So he's getting a little bit curious at this point, okay? If you need to copy anything onto your plan, adding to your own ideas, then please pause the video and do that now.

Okay, really well done.

So we have done all of the sections of our lesson now, and we've planned our section that we're going to write in the upcoming lesson.

So make sure that you hold onto your plan so that we can use it when we come to writing.

Really well done for working so hard, for taking down all those notes, you should feel very, very proud of how hard you've worked.

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

I'll see you soon for another lesson on "How To Train Your Dragon", bye!.