Lesson video

Hello, everyone! I'm Miss Corbett, and welcome to today's lesson.

Thank you for choosing to learn with me today all about characters and plot in the story "Ada Twist, Scientist." Now, as well as looking at the book "Ada Twist, Scientist," we're going to be comparing it to lots of different books by the same author, which is super exciting.

As always, for this lesson, you will need your listening ears, your looking eyes, and your thinking brain.

It would also be great if you could have someone to talk to.

As well as that, you will need a copy of the book "Ada Twist, Scientist" by Andrea Beaty.

Can you pause the video and go and get your copy now? Off you go.

Have you got it? Well done.

Can you put it to the side? Don't peek in it just yet, because we're going to be going through page by page predicting what we think it's going to be about, starting with the front cover.

Let's get started! And here is the outcome for today's lesson: "I can talk about the characters and plot in the story 'Ada Twist, Scientist' to make a prediction." And these keywords will help us to get there.

And I would like you to have your loud and proud voice and repeat them after me.

My turn, then your turn.

Character.

Plot.

Prediction.

Illustration.

Author.

Fantastic, thank you so much for joining in with me.

And maybe you can look out for those keywords during our lesson.

The first part of our lesson will be looking at the front cover.

So make sure that you have your book in front of you.

Here is the front cover of the story.

I would like you to tell the person nearby, or tell me, what can you see on the front cover.

What do you notice? What features does it have? What really strikes you? Pause the video now.

Thank you so much for your thoughts.

Should I share what I thought? I can see a title.

The title is the name of the story.

And the title of this story is "Ada Twist, Scientist." And those letters are really big, in huge capital letters.

What else can I see? Hmm.

I can see lots of illustrations.

I can see an illustration of two characters and a background with lots of symbols.

I can see the name of the author, the writer of the story, Andrea Beaty.

And I can see the illustrator, who does the illustrations, David Roberts.

Now it's your turn.

Have your front cover in front of you and get your pointing finger.

Have you got it? Can you point to the title? I'm going to give you five seconds.

Five, four, three.

Have you got your finger on it? And the title is, let's say it together: "Ada Twist, Scientist." Well done.

Get your pointing finger back, can I see it? Well done.

Can you point to the illustrations? Five seconds.

Are you pointing to them? There's so many! I wonder which one is your favourite? The illustrations are the drawings on the front cover.

Get your pointing finger back, can I see it? Can you point to, bit harder, the name of the author? I'll give you five seconds.

A bit trickier, I hope you're pointing to Andrea Beaty.

'Cause it says "by Andrea Beaty," which normally means that is who the author is.

And one more, can you point to the illustrator? Search for that word, "illustrated." I'll give you five seconds.

Did you find it? David Roberts, well done.

What great front cover detectives! I'm going to tell you some of the things I noticed from the front cover.

I've got it in front of me, hmm.

"I can see lots of symbols and drawings." Hmm.

"I can see the word 'scientist' in the title, and I can see a character's name." Ada Twist.

And, "I can see a young girl who looks like a scientist, but normally, adults or grownups are scientists." Hmm.

I wonder what you notice about the front cover.

Maybe you noticed the same things or maybe you noticed something different.

Try and say as many things as you can.

"I can see.

." Pause the video now.

Well done.

What amazing, really careful noticing and looking! And that noticing really helps us to make a prediction and get excited about what the book might be about.

Usually, the main character features on the front cover.

The front cover shows us a little girl and the title includes her name, Ada Twist.

Well done.

Have a look at the little girl.

Are you looking at her? Here are some adjectives that I would use to describe her.

Get those listening ears on.

Happy: She's smiling.

Curious: She's doing this, she's thinking.

Busy: She's done all of these symbols and drawings.

She's very busy.

Interested: She definitely looks interested with what she's doing.

Do you agree with those adjectives? But there is another character on the front cover, too.

Look at the little boy.

Here are some adjectives I would use to describe him, and see if you agree with me.

Shocked: His eyes are wide, his eyebrows are up, and his mouth is open, and he's just pointing.

Surprised.

Flabbergasted.

I wonder if you've heard that word before? Shall we say it together? Flabbergasted.

That is another word for really, really shocked.

And, confused.

He has quite a blank expression, just pointing at Ada like this.

Could you do that for me? Well done.

I wonder whether you can match some of those adjectives to the character based on the illustrations on the front cover.

I'm going to name the adjectives, and you'll see if you can match them to either Ada Twist, or the little boy, we don't know his name yet.

Are you ready to hear them? Curious.

Shocked.

Happy.

Confused.

Pause the video now and match them.

Off you go.

Let's see if you managed to match them like I did.

Hmm, who was curious? Who was thinking lots about what they were doing? Ada Twist looks curious.

Who looks shocked? The little boy looks shocked.

Who looks quite happy? Who has a smile on their face? I'm looking.

Ada Twist, I think.

And who looks confused, with that blank expression? The little boy looks confused.

Did you manage to get those? Well done if you did.

We can make predictions about what a story may be about by using the front cover.

Let's see how we can learn.

"The illustrations," the drawings, "and the title help me to predict what a story might be about." "I look carefully at the illustrations of the characters to help to predict how they are feeling or what they might enjoy." I wonder whether we could use those top prediction tips.

We can also make predictions based on what we know.

"We can link our predictions to our knowledge of the world." And, "We can think about if it reminds us of any other books that we have read before to make a prediction." I'm going to use the front cover and what I already know to help me to make a prediction about what the story "Ada Twist, Scientist" will be about.

I will make my prediction and then I will explain why I predict that.

That's a really important step.

Remember, one person's prediction might be different to someone else's because we've not yet read the book, so we don't know.

Here's my prediction.

"I predict that the story is about a curious, busy girl who loves science." Hmm, I wonder if you agree or disagree.

"I think this because the word 'scientist' is in the title and I know that scientists wear goggles and might draw symbols." So I have made my prediction by describing the character and talking about her.

Then I've explained why I think that using evidence from the front cover.

I've used the words in the title, and I've used what I know about scientists.

Now it's your turn.

Using the front cover, and what you know, make a prediction about what you think the book is going to be about, and then explain why you think that using "because." Then, listen to somebody else's prediction.

"I predict the story is about.

." "I think this because.

." Pause the video now.

what interesting and well-thought-out predictions! Well done.

Let's listen to some of those.

"I predict the story is about a little girl who teaches a little boy about science." That's a great idea.

Maybe Ada is teaching that confused little boy.

"I think this because 'scientist' is in the title and it looks like she's showing him." A great prediction.

"I predict the story is about a little girl who needs to solve a problem." Interesting.

"I think this because she looks busy and focused and the little boy looks confused." Ah, so that might suggest that there's a problem.

I wonder whether your prediction was similar or different to that.

Fantastic job, well done.

Now let's move on to the second part of our lesson, comparing books by the same author.

The author of the story "Ada Twist, Scientist" is Andrea Beaty.

Let's have a look at some other books that Andrea Beaty has written.

Here are two examples.

"Lila Greer, Teacher of the Year," and "Rosie Revere, Engineer." Have a look at your copy of "Ada Twist, Scientist." What do you notice that is the same about these front covers and the front cover of "Ada Twist, Scientist?" I can spot some similarities, I wonder if you can.

"I notice.

." Pause the video now.

Amazing noticing! We can see lots of similarities, can't we? Look at what I have noticed about books by the author, Andrea Beaty.

Here is another one, "Sofia Valdez, Future Prez." And then it says, "Sofia for President." So "prez" must mean president, somebody who's leading something.

So what's the same about my "Ada Twist" front cover that I've got here, and this one here, "Sofia Valdez, Future Prez?" It has a similar background, almost like that graph-paper style.

In the title, we have a character's name, "Sofia Valdez," "Ada Twist," "Lila Greer," "Rosie Revere." And then it has a job, "Scientist," "Engineer," "Teacher of the Year," "Future Prez." So it has a character's name, then a job, in the title.

They all have an illustration of a child, somebody young, on the front cover.

Did you notice that? And they have the same author and illustrator.

So they work collaboratively to create these books.

Have a look if you can see those same features on these front covers because, guess what? Andrea Beaty has written so many books.

"Iggy Peck, Architect." And "Aaron Slater, Illustrator." Hmm, what do you notice? Are those the same things? Maybe you could say it how I said it.

"I notice that.

." Pause the video now.

Well done, did you spot those same features? Again, similar backgrounds.

We have the same author and illustrator.

The titles have names: "Iggy Peck," "Aaron Slater." And they have jobs.

Architect.

An architect is somebody who designs buildings, and you can see that we have rulers and measuring and designs there.

And an illustrator, we know, is somebody who draws pictures for books.

And they have a child on the front cover.

Lots of similarities! So which of these are the same about the front covers by Andrea Beaty? Think about all of them, are you listening? They all have scientists.

They all have the same author and illustrator.

They all have young characters, or children, on the front cover, and they all have a character named Ada.

Hmm, which of those are the same about all of those front covers that we've looked at? Pause the video now.

Let's see if you got it.

They all have scientists.

No, just "Ada Twist" has a scientist.

They all have the same author and illustrator.

Yes, Andrea Beaty is the author, and David Roberts is the illustrator.

They all have young characters on the front cover.

Yes, they all have children on there.

They all have a character named Ada.

Just "Ada Twist, Scientist." All of the others have different names.

Well done if you spotted that.

Look at the titles of these books by Andrea Beaty: "Ada Twist, Scientist." "Lila Greer, Teacher of the Year." "Rosie Revere, Engineer." "Sofia Valdez, Future Prez." "Iggy Peck, Architect." "Aaron Slater, Illustrator." What is the same about all of these titles? Could you pause the video now and share? Well done.

Really great spotting! All of the titles include names of characters: Ada Twist, Lila Greer, Rosie Revere, Sofia Valdez, Iggy Peck, Aaron Slater.

And all of those names are proper nouns, specific names, so they need a capital letter.

Well done if you spotted that.

And all of the jobs include, all of the titles, sorry, include names of jobs or careers, things that we do for work.

We've got scientist, teacher, engineer, prez, which we said means president, a shortened version of the word president, architect, illustrator.

I wonder which of those jobs you'd most like to have.

And all of the titles have rhyming words.

The characters' surnames rhyme with the job that's in the title.

Twist, scientist.

Can you hear that they sound the same at the end? Greer and year.

Revere and engineer.

Valdez and prez.

Peck, architect.

Rhyming words, remember, "Are words that have the same sound or sounds at the end of the word." So "Peck" and "architect" is a near rhyme, because "Peck" ends in a "-ck" and "architect" ends in a "-ec," then a "-t," so that's a near rhyme.

But "Slater" and "illustrator" both end with that "-t, -her" sound, so they rhyme.

So, a bit of a tricky one.

I wonder, can you match the character's name to the job from the titles.

Tricky, because two of the titles rhyme with each other as well.

So we've got Ada Twist, Lila Greer, Rosie Revere, Iggy Peck and Aaron Slater.

Then the jobs that we have are engineer, teacher of the year, architect, scientist, and Illustrator.

Can you try and match the character's name to the job? Pause the video now.

Let's see if you got it.

We've got Ada Twist, tell me? Scientist! Lila Greer? Teacher of the year.

Greer also rhymes with engineer, but that was a different title.

Rosie Revere? Engineer! We've got architect and illustrator left.

Iggy Peck? Architect! And Aaron Slater? Illustrator.

Well done, great rhyming.

So having a look at these titles, I can predict that Andrea Beaty likes to write about children and jobs they do or want do in the future.

Front covers can encourage someone to really want to read a book by giving us clues about the plot.

The plot of one story might interest one person more than others, even if it's by the same author.

I'm going to share which book I most want to read based on the title, the illustrations, and my own interests.

"I would most like to read 'Ada Twist, Scientist' because I'm interested in science and scientists." Then I will make a prediction about the plot.

"I predict that the plot is following a little girl who wants to be a scientist.

I think this because the author writes about children and jobs." So I'm linking what I know about what Andrea Beaty likes to write about.

So now it's your turn.

The first job, share which of Andrea Beaty's books you would most like to read, and explain why.

"I would most like to read.

because.

." Then, with that book, make a prediction about what you think the plot of the book will be and explain why.

"I predict the plot will be.

I think this because.

." Then, listen to someone else's ideas and prediction.

Pause the video now.

Fantastic! Let's listen to some people's opinions about which book they'd like to read and predictions.

"I would most like to read 'Aaron Slater, Illustrator' because I love drawing." Sounds very exciting.

"I predict the plot of the story will be about a boy who loves reading, so starts to illustrate stories." Great prediction.

"I would most like to read 'Sofia Valdez, Future Prez' because I love being in pupil council at school." And a president is somebody who leads.

So if you are in pupil council at school, you're somebody who likes to lead and help others.

"I predict that the plot will be about a girl who loves to help other people." I loved hearing your opinions, your preference, about which book you'd most like to read and your prediction too.

Amazing job! I loved today's lesson because I just love talking about books.

And we have learned so much.

We know that predictions about the plot can be made using the front cover, the title, illustrations, and what we know.

We know that a front cover shares the title, such as "Ada Twist, Scientist," the author's name, and the illustrations.

Looking at and comparing books by the same author can help us to make links.

Sometimes, authors write a range of books with lots of similarities.

Front covers and our own interest help us to decide which books we'd most like to read and enjoy.

Thank you so much for learning with me today and I hope to see you again soon, bye!.