Lesson video

Hello everyone, my name is Miss Weerasekera.

Welcome to lesson two in unit 14, where we are using the story of Persephone, but changing it and using the character of Apollo instead of Demeter for our own created story.

In our last lesson, we created a story map of our new story and thought about all the different things that might happen with Apollo instead of Demeter as the main character.

In today's lesson, you're going to be hearing my version of the story.

You're then going to use your story map to step your story, and then to tell the story yourself from your memory as best as possible.

Today, I've been looking out of my window, and I've seen all sorts of amazing wildlife.

I've seen a fox, I saw lots of different types of birds flying around.

Have you seen any interesting wildlife today? In today's lesson, you need a piece of paper, it can be from an exercise book if you have one, a pencil or a pen, and you need to have your brain switched on and ready to go.

If you do not have a piece of paper and a pen or pencil, pause the video here and go and get it, and then press play when you're ready to go.

Fantastic.

We can get started.

We're going to start with some poem practise.

I'm going to share a poem with you, and then you're going to have a go at creating your own.

We're then going to listen to my version of this created story with Apollo as the main character.

Following that, you're going to get your story map from the previous lesson, lesson one in this unit, and you're going to practise stepping the story.

I'm going to show you how I do mine first.

You're then going to speak the story from your story map as best as you can.

I'm going to read you my poem now, and then I'm going to get you to do a go of your own using my turn, your turn.

Winter, winter, cruel and cold, A mother crying, feeling low, Summer, summer, life returns, A mother smiles with joy again.

We are going to do my turn, your turn for each line of this poem so you can practise having a go.

Try and use the same facial expressions, hand gestures, and tone of voice as me.

Winter, winter, cruel and cold.

Your turn.

That was really good.

A mother crying, feeling low.

Your turn.

Fantastic.

Summer, summer, life returns.

Your turn.

Good.

A mother smiles with joy again.

Your turn.

You're so brilliant at that.

If you want to have a go at doing it yourself all in one go, feel free to pause here and then press play when you're ready to continue.

Now I'm going to let you have a go of writing your own poem.

If you want to start from scratch, that's absolutely fine, but if you would like to use the same structure as my poem, then you can.

All you need to do is fill in the gaps.

So I've said winter, winter, something and something.

You just need to choose two wintry adjectives to go in that gap.

So put your mind to it.

Then it says a mother.

Now we know that this is when she's feeling, Demeter, is feeling really sad.

We did loads of show don't tell in our last unit about this.

What could you say that Demeter is doing that shows her sadness? A mother, what? A mother cries, a mother crumbles? What are you going to say there? You then have summer summer.

What happens in summer? Life returns, I said.

Could it be the sun shine, flowers grow? Whatever you want it to be could go in that gap.

And then finally it says, a mother.

So we are going to describe what Demeter does in this time.

How does she show her happiness? Okay, a smile spreads across her face, she beams with joy, she whoops with happiness, whatever you want to put there.

This is not a poem that needs to rhyme, so you do not need to worry about rhyming words.

I'd love you to pause here and have a go at writing your own poem by putting and filling in your ideas in the gap.

Oh my goodness, I think your poem is even better than mine.

What a poet you are.

You are now going to listen to my version of a created story with Apollo as our main character.

Apollo was the god of the sun, light, and music.

All light on Earth shown because of him, and every note that was played was because of him, too.

Apollo had a beautiful, golden harp that played the sweetest music anyone had ever heard.

He loved it more than anything else.

One day, Apollo was dancing to its sweet sweet melody, when Hades the god of death appeared in his flaming chariot.

He grabbed the harp and took it back down, under Earth, to his home in the underworld.

As soon as Apollo noticed that the music had stopped, he searched high and low for his treasured harp, until he realised it was nowhere to be seen.

Apollo was so heartbroken, that the light that normally shown out from behind his head started to fade away and tears fell down his cheeks like a waterfall.

The sun disappeared.

Total darkness fell, and everything began to die.

Down under Earth, Hades demanded that the harp play its sweet music, but it fell silent.

Up above Earth, Zeus, the king of all the gods, was concerned as he noticed all the plants on Earth began to wilt and die without the sunlight to give them the food they needed.

He asked Apollo to make the sun shine again, but he refused to do anything until his harp was returned to him.

So Zeus went to talk to Hades.

"You must return the harp to Apollo or everything on Earth will die.

You cannot keep it unless it has played some music in this place." Hades smiled.

"Just moments ago I managed to play 12 notes on the harp.

So it must stay with me forever." Zeus thought and pondered for awhile.

"If it has only played 12 notes, then it will stay with you for 12 hours a day, and then for the other 12 hours, it will return to Apollo up on Earth." So from that time to this, the 12 hours each day, the harp remains with Hades in the underworld.

During this time, darkness falls, the sun disappears, and all the flowers and plants begin to wilt.

This is the time we call night.

During the other 12 hours of the day, the harp is return to Apollo.

He is full of happiness and he brings the sunlight out, the flowers awaken, and warmth covers the Earth.

This is the time we call Day.

Now it's time for us to step the story.

This is one of my favourite things to do, because it means we can get up and stretch, and have a little fun.

Remember when you are stepping the story, your facial expressions, your really clear pose for each part of the story, and that you do a step, even if it's on the spot, between each one.

I'm going to model some of mine for you now, and then you were going to have a go at yours afterwards.

I'm going to show you how to step the story now.

I've got my story map with me from lesson one, so make sure you have yours too, because we are going to create an action or maybe two actions for each part of our story map.

I'm going to model the first few for you, then I'm going to let you get on with doing the rest of yours.

Okay, I'm going to put this on the ground so I can use my whole body to do my actions.

So, in my first part of my story, I've got Apollo.

He's really happy, and he's got his harp and the sun is shining.

Okay, so I'm going to have a big smile on my face, I'm going to act like I'm holding my harp and I'm playing it.

Okay, so that's my first action.

And then you're going to do a step.

Remember if you've not got a lot of space like me, you can just do it on the spot.

If you've got a little bit more space and you can find more space, then you can take a big step forward and you can move around the room.

Okay, for the next one, He's dancing happily to his harp, and then Hades comes to get it.

So I'm going to do two actions.

First, well I'm going to have a dancing one.

And my second one is going to be Hades coming to get the harp.

Okay, I'm just going to practise both of those together so you can see it.

I'm going to go back a step.

My first one.

Okay, I'm going to do one more for you and then you were going to have a go at doing your whole story map in steps.

Now, remember we are in the underworld with Hades, and he's trying to get the harp to play.

Okay, so he's going to have a cross look on his face.

And for this, I'm going to use one word to help emphasise it.

So I'm going to be like this.

Play.

Okay, so you can use, maybe one word or a noise to help emphasise it.

We don't want more than one word, because it's more about the actions and our face expressions and gestures, then it is about what we're saying.

I'm going to show you those three together, and then I'm going to stop, and you were going to have a go at doing your whole story map and stepping each part.

Okay, so.

Play.

Okay, it's going to be your turn now.

Fantastic.

You're turn now, so press pause, have a go at your steps, and then press play when you're ready to go again.

Oh my goodness, you are a stepping star.

Okay, now that we have mapped the story, and stepped the story, it's starting to get into our head a little bit.

So now I'd like you to use your story map to try and retell the story as best as you can.

Remember, yours might be quite similar to mine, but you might have also changed the harp to be something different that got stolen.

So you need to use your story map to help you with your speaking of the story.

Remember you can use a pretend microphone, it could be anything, sometimes I use a pen.

You need to project your voice nice and loud and clear, and see if you can perform to someone in your house.

If not, you can just perform to a teddy.

You can even do it standing in front of a mirror.

It just helps to have something that you're performing to.

Press pause here, and then press play once you are done.

Wow! What a performance.

That was absolutely amazing.

I can tell that you were already starting to learn your story, and that means when we get around to writing it later in the unit, you are going to do so well.

For our challenge task today, I would like you to choose different parts of your story from your story map that you could say in different styles.

The style might depend on what is happening at that point in the story, or what the mood is.

When something negative is happening, you might use a loud and stern, or whispered and slow voice to show that.

When something happy is happening, you might use a high-pitched and cheerful voice.

I would like you to choose, with each of those I listed underneath there, which part of the story matches up with that style of speaking, and then practise saying it.

Pause the video now, and then press play when you've had a go at that.

I think you chose those parts of the story really well.

Well done.

You have done a brilliant job today, and we have got so much done.

I cannot believe that we've listened to a story, and stepped the story, and spoken it.

I can tell it's in our heads already.

I would love to see your story map, or even see you stepping your story, so if you would like to share that, ask a parent or carer to upload a picture or a video to Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter tagging Oak National and using the hashtag Learn with Oak.