Lesson video

Hello everyone.

My name is Miss Weerasekera, and welcome to lesson four in our unit about our creative story.

In today's lesson, we're going to be focusing on grammar, and in particular, apostrophes for contraction.

I'm going to go on to that a little bit more later, but it's basically when we can take two words and join them together using an apostrophe.

I'm feeling really creative today, so I've been trying to decide what creative activity to do later.

I'm not sure whether to get my watercolour paints out, maybe to do a little bit of knitting, or just to do some drawing.

What's your favourite crafty activity to do? In this lesson, you're going to need something to write on, like a piece of paper, something to write with, like a pen or pencil, and your brain.

Hopefully you've got your brain already, and it's ready to do some learning.

If you don't have a pen or pencil, or a piece of paper, pause the video here and go and get it.

When you've got it, press play, and we'll continue with the lesson.

Fantastic.

Let's carry on.

In today's lesson, we're going to start with an oral word warm up.

We're then going to move on to introducing our new grammar rule for today, before using it in a writing task linked to our story.

We're then going to do a final challenge task to test our brains.

For our word warm up today, I would like you to match the emotion synonyms at the bottom in dark blue, with the drawings of Apollo.

So there are two drawings of Apollo, one at the beginning when he's looking quite happy, and one later on in my story map, when his heart has been taken by Hades, and he's feeling sad.

You might remember from a previous unit that we discussed what a synonym is.

It is when a word is spelt differently, but it has a similar, or the same, meaning.

At the bottom are four different emotion words, and I would like you to match each of those emotion words to the picture that it matches to best.

Pause the video here and do that, and then press play when you think you've done it.

Well done.

What did you get? I agree.

I think "peaceful" and "content" are synonyms, and probably match that first picture, when he looks happy, the sun is shining, and his harp's music is playing.

I think "depressed" and "downhearted" are most likely to match the second one, when he does not have his harp, and everything has gone dark.

In our lesson today, we are going to be looking at apostrophes for contraction.

We can use an apostrophe to join two words together to make one word.

The apostrophe goes where any missing letters, or one letter, have disappeared.

Here's an example.

I have the two words, "do not." I can use an apostrophe to join them together to "don't." Can you see which letter, or letters, have disappeared? You're right.

It's only one in this case, isn't it? The o has disappeared, and that is why you can see the apostrophe in the place where it used to be.

I would like you to have a go at matching the words on the left to their contracted versions on the right.

You can pause the video and write them down on a piece of paper, or just do it in your head, and then press play when you think you've figured it out.

Well done.

That was super speedy.

Let's have a look at the answers together.

So "cannot" at the top matches with the second one, "can't." And you can see that we have lost a n and an o there, which is why the apostrophe goes in the middle.

The second one, "would not," matches to the third blue one down, which says "wouldn't." And that time we have missed out a o.

And then the apostrophe has gone in its place.

The third pink one says "did not," which becomes "didn't." That time we have missed out a o again, and the apostrophe goes in its place.

And then the final one says, "could not," which became "couldn't." The same as the ones before.

The o is gone and the apostrophe takes its place.

What did you notice about all of these contracted words? Can you see a pattern? Yes.

All of them have "not," don't they, at the end.

That's not the same for all contractions, but quite a few of the contractions are a word, and then the word "not." I had a go at doing some contractions of my own here, but I think I might've made a couple of mistakes.

I would like you to pause the video and have a really careful look at what I've done, and see if you can spot the ones that I have done incorrectly.

I would really appreciate it, if you could help me correct them too.

Pause the video and then press play when you think you've done it.

Superstar, thank you so much for helping me out.

Contractions can be a little bit tricky, and it takes a little bit of practise to get used to them.

Let's see if you spotted all of my mistakes.

Did you spot those two? So in the first one I was trying to turn "it is" into "it's." I put the apostrophe in the correct place, but I forgot to get rid of the i.

In the final one, it says "they are." I put "theyre," and I got rid of the a, like I was supposed to, but what did I forget? I forgot to put the apostrophe, didn't I.

So it should be they apostrophe re, for "they're." The other two I managed to get correct.

"She is," the i disappears, and I put the apostrophe in its place, "She's." And "he is," the i disappears, I put the apostrophe in its place, and it's "he's." Okay.

For our writing task today, we're going to take all of the work we've done with contractions and apply it to our created story.

I would like you to have a look at the sentence starters in the pink box.

There are some words in bold that can be contracted using an apostrophe.

The first step is to turn those words in bold into contractions.

And then I would like you to complete each of the sentences, using what we know about the characters and the story, but also your imagination.

I'm going to muddle the first two for you, and then you can finish off by yourself.

Before I start writing my contractions in my sentences, I'm going to write that we are in Unit 14, doing lesson four.

And our learning objective for today's lesson is to use apostrophes for contraction.

Okay.

My first sentence was, "Apollo cannot." So I'm going to write the original first, so you can see it.

And then we're going to do the contraction, this word, and then we're going to continue with the rest of our sentence.

So I'm going to start my actual sentence with "Apollo." Can you remember "cannot"? What does it become? Which letters disappear? In this one it's two letters that disappear, and the apostrophe goes in its place.

That's right, it's the n and the o that disappear, which means I need to make sure my apostrophe goes between this n and this t, okay? So, "Apollo can't," apostrophe, t, "Apollo can't," I'm going to say, "find his harp, even though he has looked everywhere." Okay.

For my next one, it says, "Hades did not." Can you remember how I contract these two words together using an apostrophe? What letter, or letters, are going to disappear? That's right.

It's this o, isn't it? So the n joins onto here, my apostrophe goes here.

So I'm going to write, "Hades didn't," apostrophe, t, so that's where the o has disappeared.

"Hades didn't." I'm going to say, "Hades didn't know." "Hades didn't know how to get the harp to play it's beautiful music." Okay.

Now I'm not going to do anymore, so I would like you to practise your contractions and to come up with your own ideas.

But you are going to on your own piece of paper, go and have a go at this activity independently.

Here is a tricky challenge task for you today.

Can you spot all of the words that could be contracted in the passage below, and use an apostrophe to join them together? I've hidden them quite well this time.

So you're going to really have to concentrate to find the words that could be joined together using an apostrophe.

I'm going to read you the passage now.

Listen carefully to see if you can spot the words that could be contracted.

"Apollo could not believe it when his harp stopped playing.

He looked for it everywhere.

'It is not where I left it.

I cannot look any longer,' he muttered.

Apollo decided he would not let the sun shine until it was returned to him." Press pause here and have a go.

You don't have to write the whole thing out again.

You can just use your eyes to spot it.

When you think you've spotted them all, and you know what they should be contracted to, press play and we'll have a look together.

Well done.

Did you spot those words in bold? So "could not" became "couldn't." "It is" became "it's." "Cannot" became "can't," and "would not" became "wouldn't." You are a contraction wizard if you managed to spot all of those.

Well done.

I'm really impressed by all of your work today, and would love to see your sentences.

If you would like to share them, get a parent or carer to take a picture, and share them on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, using the hashtag "LearnwithOak," and tagging Oak National.

I hope to see you in our next lesson.