Lesson video

Today, we are going to start off with a speaking activity, followed by some spelling.

Then, we're going to do some shared writing to prepare you for doing some independent writing and editing of your own.

In this lesson, you will need exercise book, or paper, a pencil, and your brain.

So pause the video now if you need to get any of those things.

Hi everyone, Miss Fryer here for lesson eight of our Anansi and Tiger action unit.

In lesson seven, we used our action writing toolkit to read as a writer about Python, unpicking what makes the action clear in that part of the story.

We also created some verbs, thinking of some that we could use in our writing.

I hope you've kept them somewhere safe.

I also left you with some trivia.

I told you that spiders moult, or shed, their exoskeletons, the hard exterior of their body, as they grow.

So how many times do you think a spider moults? How many did you think? It seems very strange to get rid of your skeleton.

Wow.

Spiders, on average, moult about ten times over the course of their life.

So from right little baby spiders, to giant big spiders, depending on what kind of spider it is, they get rid of their whole skeleton ten times.

Wonder if it hurts? Wonder if it feels anything at all? Very strange.

But still, amazing.

We're going to start off today with a speaking activity.

It's based around one of the things in our action writing toolkit, about making sure we write what happens in a clear order.

I've given you four sentences - four pieces of action that happen in our Anansi and Tiger story.

I want to see if you can put them in the correct order.

They've all been mixed up! The first one says, "Anansi called, 'Oh, Python!'" The second one says, "The bees flew in to the barrel." The third one says, "There was no more sign of Tiger." The fourth one says, "Tiger was fed up with Anansi." See if you can put them in the right order; from what happens first, second, third, and fourth.

Pause the video now to have a go.

Okay, did you have a think about the order of the action in the story? Which of these happens first? At the start of the story, Tiger is fed up with Anansi.

That's what happens first in order.

Well done if you got that one.

Which one happens second? This one: the bees flew in to the barrel.

That one happens second.

After the bees, Anansi goes to see the Python, so, therefore, he calls, "oh, Python!" Third, out of all our sentences.

And that means fourth, and last, is, "there was no more sign of Tiger." That's the thing that happens fourth, or last, in our story.

Well done if you managed to put those into the correct order.

Now, we're going to do some spelling.

In lesson six, we started out looking at the spelling pattern /n/ /k/.

That's two sounds that we blend together into our consonant blend /nk/.

Today, I'm going to give you some words on your screen for you to read.

You need to decide whether they are a real word, that's what the tick is for, or, an alien word.

Not a real word at all! That's how I recognise alien words.

So, I'm going to flash up a word on the screen.

You need to read it, and give it a tick in the air if it's a real word, and make an alien noise if it's an alien word.

Let's have a try.

Okay, remember: real word or alien word? Let's have a look at the first one.

There it is, you read it.

Give it a tick in the air if you think it's a real word.

Make your alien noise if you think it's an alien word.

Have you decided? Let's read it together.

/Ch/-/u/-/n/-/k/.

Chunk.

Real word or alien word? Chunk is a.

real word.

So it gets a tick in the air.

Well done if you got that one.

Next word.

Time for you to read.

Look at the letters, make the sounds, blend the sounds together.

Real word or alien word? Okay, let's read it together.

/B/-/l/-/i/-/n/-/k/.

Blink.

Real word, real word.

Blinking is real, isn't it? I have just blinked.

Blink! Blink! Let's have a look at another one.

Have a look at the word on the screen.

You read it.

Is it a real word, or an alien word? Let's read it together.

/G/-/l/-/a/-/n/-/k/.

Glank.

Glank's not a real word! What does glank mean? It doesn't mean anything.

It's an alien word.

I wonder if you made an alien noise, well done if you did.

Next one - oops, that was my alien.

Next one.

Time for you to read.

What do you think, real word or alien word? Let's read it together.

/S/-/p/-/r/-/u/-/n/-/k/.

Sprunk.

That's an alien word! There's no such word as sprunk.

Let's do another one.

Time for you to read.

Real word or alien word? Have you decided? Let's read.

/D/-/r/-/a/-/n/-/k/.

Drank.

Tick! That's a real word.

I drank my water because I was thirsty.

Tick! Okay, last one.

Last word for you to read.

Real word or alien word, you decide.

I've made this one tricky, I've put a diagraph in it.

Let's read.

/B/-/l/-/oi/-/n/-/k/.

Bloink.

Bloink's an alien word! Maybe it's an alien name? Maybe it's an alien language? Maybe it's an alien word that they use to say, "Hello!" Bloink! Whatever the case, it's not a real word, so I hope you made your alien sound.

Now it's time for us to do that shared writing.

We've been preparing for this for several lessons now, so I expect you are nice and ready.

You're going to need your boxing from lesson six, it should look a bit like this, and your verbs from lesson seven.

They're going to really help you plan out your writing.

So, pause the video if you need to go and get them, and then join me for some shared writing.

When we're writing today, we want to make sure our action is really clear.

That's the really important focus of all of our learning in this unit.

We want to describe the action of the characters so it's really clear what is happening - at a suitable pace.

That's not just rush all the way to the end, or spend loads of time talking about one thing.

A suitable pace.

We do this three ways: We write what's happened in a clear order, so that means using our verbs, our action words, one after the other, and putting everything in the right order, and making it clear.

We want to make sure to put a 'where' and a 'when', so we know where actions are happening, and when it's happening.

That might mean after different actions, or before other ones that are also important.

And finally, adjectives to add detail.

They tell us what the action's like, what the characters are like, and what they are doing - what is that like? That's really going to help us make our action even clearer.

So, I'm ready for my writing, I hope you are too.

I've got with me today my boxing template because I'm going to be writing this first box about Anansi being fed up, and I also want to include a little bit about Tiger, because I want to show some of Anansi's actions against Tiger, and Tiger's against Anansi.

I've also got my words that I wrote, my verbs from lesson seven.

So, today, I want to try and make sure I'm getting the word 'tricked' for Anansi, what he did to Tiger, and I want to get in the word 'prowled'.

So I'm going to keep those nearby so I can remember to use them, and how to spell them.

Now this is the start of a story, so I need a story-starter.

I think I'm going to start with the word: Once.

Once, O-N-C-E.

Once.

Those tricky sight word.

Once.

Once, now who, a S-P-I-D-E-R, a spider, called - now, 'called' is a tricky word, but I always remember it's got a little word inside the big word.

Little word 'all', that's one of our sight words, isn't it? So I know it goes /c/-all, and then the -ed for past tense - called, what was he called? Anansi - hopefully we can spell Anansi by now.

Just got that tricky last sound: /A/-/n/-/a/-/n/-/s/ - they're all normal sounds, and then the e sound with an i.

Called Anansi.

Once a spider called Anansi was, now these are the words from my boxing, fed up.

/F/-/e/-/d/ /u/-/p/.

Fed up.

Was fed up of Tiger.

/T/-/i/-/g/-/er/.

Tiger, capital letter for his name.

Fed up of Tiger having - /h/-/av/-/i/-/ng/, having all, there's that little word again, all the, what did he have? All the best stories.

/B/-/e/-/s/-/t/, best.

/S/-/t/-/or/-/ie/-/s/, and then we need a full stop.

Was fed up of him having all the best stories.

Now, let's try and get in that word 'tricked'.

Hmm.

Oh, I know.

How about: he decided Tiger needed to be tricked.

Let's see if we can tap that out, let's do it on our heads.

He decided Tiger needed to be tricked.

On our shoulders.

He decided Tiger needed to be tricked.

On our nose.

He decided Tiger needed to be tricked.

And on our fingers.

He decided Tiger needed to be tricked.

How many words? Seven.

He - H and E spells 'he' with a capital letter, now 'decided' is very tricky, so I'll give you this spelling, D-E, in 'decided' a /c/, /c/, /c/, becomes a /s/, /s/, /s/.

/De/-/ci/-/d/-/e/-/d/.

Decided.

Decided /T/-/i/-/g/-/er/ /n/-/ee/-/d/-/e/-/d/, needed to be, now I'm going to check my verbs: tricked.

Tricked.

That's the important verb for Anansi.

/T/-/r/-/ick/, -ed for /deh/.

Going to be tricked.

So what did he do, what did he decide to do? He.

went.

to see him in his cave.

So he went to see him in his cave.

Let's tap that out.

So he went to see him in his cave.

On your shoulders.

So he went to see him in his cave.

On your nose.

So he went to see him in his cave.

On your tongue.

I do that one sometimes, it's a bit silly.

So, he again, /w/-/e/-/n/-/t/, went to, T-O spells 'to', /s/-/ee/ /h/-/i/-/m/ /i/-/n/ /h/-/i/-/s/ /c/-/a/-/ve/, in his cave.

Full stop.

Now, what did he do when he got to the cave? What did he do? He called out, "Oh, Tiger!" That's what I'm going to write.

It's speech so I'm going to be using some inverted commas.

Oh, O and H spells 'oh', oh, /T/-/i/-/g/-/er/.

Oh, Tiger! Going to use an exclamation mark because it's using a big feeling, and a loud voice.

Oh, Tiger! He /c/-all-ed - called again! Let's think of one more sentence, because I need Tiger to respond to Anansi's actions, and it's very important that I use that word 'prowled'.

So, in the story, it says that Tiger prowled out of his cave, so I think I'm going to go with that.

He prowled out of his cave, let's start with that.

/T/-/i/-/g/-/er/ prowled - I'm looking at my verbs, /pr/-/owl/-/l/-/ed/ for prowled, out, out of /h/-/i/-/s/ /c/-/a/-/ve/.

Oh, I think I'm going to use a conjunction 'and' here to join two bits of action together.

He prowled out of his cave, and - what else did he do? Do you remember? And.

growled at Anansi.

That's what I'm going to write.

And, our joining word, /g/-/r/-/ow/-/l/-ed, growled at Anansi.

That's about enough action for me for the moment.

Let's read it back through together.

Once a spider called Anansi was fed up of Tiger having all the best stories.

He decided Tiger needed to be tricked so he went to see him in his cave.

"Oh, Tiger!" He called.

Tiger prowled out of his cave and growled at Anansi.

I'm pretty happy with that.

Now that I've done some writing, I think it's your turn.

Now that I've done my writing, it's there for you right here on the screen.

It's time for you to have a go.

Write the action scene between Anansi and Tiger using our toolkits to help you.

If you'd like, write all the way through the Tiger interaction right up until the deal.

Pause the video now to complete your task, and resume once you've finished.

Okay, hopefully you've done some amazing writing.

Done that first box, used your verbs from lesson seven.

Now it's time for us to edit our work.

When we edit, we do it under three criteria: the first two are on my screen right now.

Does it meet our learning objective of writing action that is clear? So I need to check to make sure my action is as clear as it can be using those three criteria.

The second thing I'm going to do, is do my SAD edit.

SAD stands for swap, add, and delete.

Swap, add, and delete.

They are all things that we could do to make our writing better.

Perhaps changing some of the words to make for better words? Perhaps adding in extra detail, or deleting things that don't make sense, or don't really matter? I'm going to do that now.

Let's see if there is anything I want to swap, add, or delete.

When I'm doing that, I want to always be thinking of ways that I can best follow my action writing toolkit.

So let me think.

Do you know what? I've just seen something that I want to swap, because one of the things in my writing toolkit is about 'when' and 'where,' and I don't think I do 'when' well enough at the moment in my writing.

So I think I'm going to swap 'once' for the story-starter 'long ago'.

That tells me better when this story happens.

So I'm going to have /l/-/o/-/ng/ /a/, and then the word 'go', G-O spells go.

'Long ago', I think that tells me a better when in my story.

So that's a swap.

Let me see if there is anything else I want to swap, add, or delete.

Oh, I actually - I'm going to get rid of the word 'went' - 'went' is a bit of a boring word.

I want to swap it with something better, about, that gives us a better impression of what Anansi is doing.

'Went's' not really sneaky enough for Anansi.

I think I'm going to use the word 'sneaked.

' /S/-/n/-/ea/-/k/, and then -ed for sneaked.

So he sneaked.

And then I'm going to add the word 'off'.

Sneaked off to see him in his cave.

I like that, that's much better.

That was much more Anansi.

Anything I want to add? Oh, yes actually.

"Oh, Tiger!" He called - that doesn't tell me how he called.

I want to use an adjective to describe, that's from my writing toolkit.

So I'm going to say, he called - let's get rid of my full stop, because I'm going to carry on this sentence, he called, and I'm going to use that phrase from the story, in a /s/-/i/-/ng/ /s/-/o/-/ng/, sing song /v/-/o/-/ice/.

The /s/ sound in voice is a -ce, and a full stop, let's move it there.

"Oh, Tiger!" He called in a sing song voice.

He kind of sings.

So that is adding an adjective to describe.

So I've added a 'when,' I've added an adjective to describe.

So that already made it better.

I think that will do, I think that's much better.

I've changed, I've swapped two things, I've added two things - I don't think there is anything I want to delete today.

But you might have some extra words that you don't need in yours that you want to delete, so feel free to.

The last thing I need to do is to check my work with my five finger check.

We need to make sure, with all of our writing, that we have a capital letter at the start of each sentence - so I can check mine.

Looks like I got them.

I need to make sure I have a finger space in between every single word.

I need to check my spellings - I can use my boxing template, and my verbs to make sure I got those spelt right, and some of my words I can sound out again to make sure I haven't missed any sounds out.

I need to make sure I got full stops at the end of all of my sentences, and I should read it through afterwards to make sure it makes sense.

You need to edit your sentences too.

Do those three things that we've talked about: make sure your action is clear, do your SAD edit: your swap, add, or delete, and your five finger check.

Then, your sentences will be the best they can be.

Pause the video now to complete your task.

And that is it for our lesson eight.

In lesson nine, we are going to be carrying on with our writing from today; this time, writing action about Anansi, and the Queen Bee - that's our next character in the story.

So bring your boxing, and your action verbs, for that one too.

Trivia time: spider fact.

Today's spider fact is about small spiders, I've already asked you about Goliath birdeater spiders, which are the biggest type of spider, so the patu digua, by some accounts, is the smallest spider in the world.

But how small do you think it is? Maybe you can find something that you think could be the same size as the smallest spider in the world.

Have a sensible guess, and I will tell you at the start of lesson nine.

Getting close to the end now, guys.

Bye!.