Lesson video

Hello everyone, my name is Miss Weerasekera and welcome to lesson four in our unit about our discussion, did Ganesh cheat or not? In today's lesson, we're going to be focusing on some grammar, that's going to be super useful for our writing.

They're called subordinating conjunctions.

Don't worry that it's a little bit of a long word, I'm going to help you to understand them, and we're going to practise using them today, so that we can use them in our discussion writing later on in the unit.

It is a really sunny day today and when it's a sunny day, it makes me feel really happy.

It makes me want to get outside, it doesn't matter if it's summer or winter, and go for a really nice walk in the sunshine.

How does the sunshine make you feel? What do you like to do when it's sunny? In today's lesson, you're going to need a pen or a pencil and a piece of paper to write on.

We're going to be doing lots of practising of writing sentences, using our subordinating conjunctions, so, you're really going to need those.

You're also going to need your brain to help understand how we use these conjunctions in our writing.

If you do not have a pen or pencil, or a piece of paper to write on, pause here and then press play, when you've got everything you need.

In today's lesson, we're going to start off with an oral game that's linked to our grammar topic.

It's called extend my sentence, extend basically means make bigger or add on to.

I'm then going to introduce you to subordinating conjunctions.

So, I'm going to tell you a little bit about it and show you some examples, so you'll just need to be listening and looking really carefully.

You're then going to have a go at doing a writing task, using our subordinating conjunctions, and finally, there'll be a challenge task at the end.

Okay, our oral game is called, extend my sentence.

I'm going to give you some sentence starters, and then it's going to be your job to use a when, if or because to continue them.

Now, you can choose to use just one, you can choose to try and do it three times using all three, it's up to you.

I'm going to model this one for you, and then it will be your turn.

I will do my homework when I have finished eating my dinner.

I'm going to show you how I would do it for the other two as well, 'cause then you can have a go.

I will do my homework if someone helps me.

I will do my homework because I have to.

Okay, so I was able to change the sentence and what went on the end, depending on which one of those subordinating conjunctions I used.

Pause here, have a go at orally practising , extending that sentence using each of those and then press play.

Fantastic, it looks like you already know how to use those, which means you're going to be an absolute superstar in our lesson today.

Let's practise another one.

I can go to the park.

So, you're going to practise all three out loud for me.

I can go to the park when, I can go to the park if, I can go to the park because.

Pause here and do those and then press play when you've done all three.

Brilliant.

Did you notice how the sentence changes depending on which one of those words or subordinating conjunctions we use? They have a real impact on the type of detail we add to our sentence.

Okay, so, let's get started with what are subordinating conjunctions.

Now, to build up to that, we have to understand certain things about how a sentence is made.

A sentence is made up of a clause or clauses, and a clause basically just means a group of words.

But in a clause, there has to be a subject and a verb.

So, a subject is the person or the animal or whatever it is that's the main part of that sentence, and then the verb is what that subject or that person or that animal, whichever it is, is doing.

So, in the clause here, it says, Ganesh read quickly.

Ganesh is the subject, he's the person, and read is the verb, it's what he is doing.

We've got an adverb quickly on the end 'cause we can extend our sentences by adding other types of words for details, like adjectives and adverbs.

I would like you to try and create a clause with a subject and a verb.

It could be about yourself.

So, I might say, Miss Weerasekera went to the shops.

Miss Weerasekera is the subject, went is the verb.

So, why don't you try and create a clause about yourself.

Pause here and then press play when you've done that.

Fantastic, so it should have had your name in it and then something that you were doing, the verb.

Now, sometimes we have a compound sentence.

A compound sentence is when we get two clauses and we can join them together.

I've got two clauses below.

The first, Ganesh read quickly, Ganesh is the subject, read is the verb.

The second, he travelled the world, he is the subject, travelled is the verb.

We can use the word and to join these two sentences or these two clauses together, into one compound sentence and compound, basically just means made up of more than one thing and here it, Ganesh read quickly and he travelled to the world.

In this example, both of the clauses and both at the sentences, are equally important, they both have a subject and a verb, and they're both telling us something about the action of the story.

Sometimes we just want to add some extra detail to our sentence, and when we do this, we can use a subordinating conjunction.

We take the word and then we add the extra information about the subject or about the action that we need to add.

So, these are some examples of subordinating conjunctions.

There are lots and lots of them, but we're just going to focus on these four today to get us started.

When, if, that, because.

Let's do my turn, your turn.

My turn, when, your turn? Fantastic, my turn, if, your turn? My turn, that, your turn? My turn, because, your turn? Fantastic.

Now, here is an example, Ganesh read quickly because he wanted to win the competition.

We have at the beginning, our main clause, like we were talking about earlier in the lesson, Ganesh read quickly, it has the subject and it has the verb, it's got some main clause.

We then have, because, that is our subordinating conjunction, it's the word that's going to help us to add extra information onto the end, and finally, we have the extra information.

Now, this is normally called the subordinating clause.

Okay, it's a long word, but all you need to know is it means, that's the bit of the sentence that has the extra information in it.

So, we have the main clause, the subordinating conjunction, and then we have the subordinating clause or the extra information, okay? I'm going to show you a sentence now and I'm going to see if you can spot which part is the main clause? Which part is the subordinating conjunction? Which part is the subordinating clause? Remember, subordinating clause is just the extra information.

The sentence is, Kartikeya was angry when he realised what Ganesh had done.

Pause here, think about which part is which, main clause, subordinating conjunction, subordinating clause or extra information, and then press play, when you think you've figured it out.

Great, well done for giving that a try, I know this is a little bit tricky.

Okay, so we've got, the main clause is Kartikeya was angry, Kartikeya is the subject, was is the verb, then we have when, which is our subordinating conjunction, and then we have, he realised what Ganesh had done, which is our subordinating clause, it's the extra information that we've added on.

You can also put a subordinating conjunction and a subordinating clause at the beginning of the sentence, rather than adding it to the end.

This can just make it more interesting for our reader and change the sentence structure in a certain way.

So, this time I've taken my subordinating conjunction, when, put it at the beginning, then I've put my subordinating clause next to it, and then that main clause that used to be at the beginning, I've moved it to the end.

I'm going to read the sentence for you now.

When he realised what Ganesh had done, Kartikeya was angry.

The main thing you have to remember, if you're putting your subordinating conjunction and clause at the beginning, is that you have to put comma after it, before you put the main clause.

But apart from that, you can move the pieces around a bit like a jigsaw puzzle.

It says here, can you put the correct subordinating conjunction in each gap? Now, some of them can go in more than one sentence, which can make it a bit tricky, but have a go at moving them around, and then you can decide which one fits best and where.

So, we've got when, if, that and because.

I'm going to read the sentences for you, then it's going to be your turn to figure out which one goes in which gap.

You can write it down on a piece of paper if you want, or you can just practise doing it out loud.

Ganesh told Kartikeya how he travelled the wedding was over.

Kartikeya was angry with his brother he found out Ganesh's trick.

Ganesh read books described the world in detail.

The competition would have been different the rules were clear.

In each of those gaps will need to be a subordinating conjunction, one of those four in the pink box.

Before that is the main clause, after that is the subordinating clause, okay? So, pause here, have a go at saying them out loud and choosing which one goes where, or have a go at writing them down, I'll leave that up to you.

Press play when you have done that.

Fantastic, well done for giving that a try.

Now, we're going to go through and have a look at it, and there're, as I said before, there are some that can go more than one place, so, I'm going to explain the ones that have multiple options because they would both be correct.

In the first sentence, Ganesh told Kartikeya how he travelled, it could be because the wedding was over or it could be when the wedding was over, both of those make sense.

Because gives us more information about why something happened, and when gives us more information about the time at which it happened.

The same thing goes for the second sentence, Kartikeya was angry with his brother because he found out Ganesh's trick, and also, Kartikeya was angry with his brother when he found out Ganesh's trick.

In one, it tells us the time, in the other, it gives us a reason why.

So, it just depends what you want the purpose of that extra information to be.

Third one says, Ganesh read books that described world in detail.

And finally, the competition would have been different if the rules were clear.

Okay, so those ones specifically go in that sentence and wouldn't make sense in the others, but quite often, because and when can be switched around, depending on the type of information you want to give the reader of your story.

Okay, so, which subordinating conjunction would you use to add extra information to the sentences below? Now remember, not all of them will work in every sentence, so you're going to have to choose wisely, and I only want you to use each of the words once.

Okay, so you can use when, if, that, because, but only each of them once.

I have got four sentence starters for you, and it's going to be your job to write this time, your sentences down, adding your subordinating conjunction, and then adding the end as well, your subordinating clause, the extra information.

Ganesh is a cheat.

Kartikeya saw amazing things.

It's not fair.

Kartikeya might have married Buddhi.

Okay, so the first thing you've got to do is add on the word when, if, that or because, whichever one you want to choose, then you've got to finish off with the extra detail at the end, okay.

Pause here and write your sentences and then press play when you are done.

Oh, my goodness, you are doing a brilliant job at this and these sentences could actually be used in our discussion, couldn't they? So, hang on to those that you've got on your piece of paper and you can come back to them in a later lesson.

You've got a challenge task to do now, it says, can you create a sentence using a subordinating conjunction at the start? Just like we've got here at the bottom, when he realised what he had done, we have the subordinating conjunction first, then the extra information, the subordinating clause second, you have the comma and then we have the main clause.

So, I would like you to use the subordinating conjunction when, and come up with your own sentence with the, when, at the beginning, instead of in the middle.

Pause here and have a go at that and then press play when you have done it.

Brilliant job, that's a really tricky thing to do and I'm super impressed that you gave it a go.

I would love to see the work and the writing that you have done today using your subordinating conjunctions.

If you would like to share it with me, please ask a parent or carer to put it on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.

You can tap Oak National and use the hashtag Learn with Oak.

In our next lesson, we're going to be looking more into our discussion, on practising our retrieval skills, and you're going to meet my friend Retrieval Rabbit, who's really going to help us.

After that, we will be moving on in the remaining lessons to box up and then write our own discussion.

It's going to be super exciting.

I hope to see you in our next lesson.