Lesson video

Hello and welcome back.

I'm so excited to find out more about our story today, about the little brave bird and the forest fire.

My name is Mr. Santhanam.

And today we're going to be thinking about how we can learn a story from memory.

The reason we do this is so that we can lock the story in our brains, and therefore we don't have to worry about what happens anymore.

We can really start to think about the language and how to be imaginative with our storytelling.

First of all, I want us to ask some questions to the little bird here, about what she loves so much about the forest.

Too bad.

What do you love so much about the forest? Oh wow.

She says that she loves the beautiful, vibrant green colours in the forest the most.

What else do you love about it? What else do you love? Do you love any of the sounds in your forest? She also says that she loves the calming tranquil trickling sounds of the river that runs through her forest.

Do you have any friends in the forest? Oh, Oh, Oh, ah.

She says that there is a fierce tiger in the forest that he's very friendly too.

She also says that there is a humongous towering grey elephant with a mighty long trunk and sharp tusks.

She also said that there was a twisty sneaky snake that curls around her branches sometimes, but they're friends too.

So don't worry.

Phew.

She also said that there are graceful elegant antelope that prompts through the branches and the trees.

Amazing.

Now that we know some more about the little bird's home and why she loves it so much, we can begin.

To start with, we're going to recap the information that we have learned from the story.

And I'm going to be testing you on some of the key facts.

Then we're going to create our own storymaps, which will help us to illustrate the story and therefore understand it and remember it better.

And then we can lock it in our brains.

Finally, we're going to step and speak the story.

That means that we're going to physically step through the story and that will help us to tell the story as well.

Once you can step the story, then you can perform it.

For this lesson, you are going to need your exercise books and some paper, preferably plain paper.

You will also need a pencil.

And of course, you're going to need a brilliant brain.

Pause the video here while you go and get those things.

Welcome back.

I hope you brought your brain with you.

The first thing we're going to do is recap the story.

So make sure you've got your thinking caps on.

I hope you've remembered lots of information.

In the story what happened to the little bird's friends.

And can you remember what they said to her? So when the forest was burning up with all those flames and was becoming destroyed, what did her friends do? That's right.

They all ran away.

They were very scared.

They decided to leave the forest and abandon it.

Even though the little bird decided that she wanted to stay.

Can you remember what they said to her, why don't you shout it out now in a second.

Three, two, one.

Wow.

You sound just like them.

They said, of course, run away with us, run away with us.

You will be burned if you stay here.

Fantastic.

Let's move on.

What sound does the water make on the flames? Let's make the sound together.

Okay.

Are you ready? So when the water hit those flames, what sound does it make? One, two, three.

That's right, it went and.

Amazing, it happened quite a few times throughout the story, didn't it? Okay.

What did the gods up in the heavens say when they saw what the little bird was doing? Hmm.

Just try and remember.

Well, that depends really, doesn't it? Are we talking about the eagle god or the other gods? Hmm.

Let's think about, what did the other gods say? Wow, I felt like I was the little bird that and they were talking to me.

Of course, they said, "That silly little bird, look at what she's doing.

If she keeps doing that, she'll be cooked." They weren't very kind, were they? They were just a little mean.

Now, what did the eagle god say? Hmm.

Oh, that's right.

The eagle god swooped down to earth and spoke to the little bird herself.

And she said, well, the eagle god said, "Little bird, what are you doing? You are too small.

And this fire is too big.

You'll never put it out." That's been fun.

And lastly, what happened in the next spring time in the forest? So after everything had been destroyed and there was nothing left but ash and the little birds tree, what happened? Now, there's an action here that might help you to remember, do you remember what happened? That's right, under the floor of ash, little shoots began to grow and we can do this action to show that the little shoots are growing out of the ashes.

Okay.

It's now time for us to do our storymap.

So you're going to need your paper and your pencil for this part.

Okay? So the first thing you need to do is get your book or your piece of paper out, and you need to put it on a table so that you can draw nice and comfortably.

Now, it is easier if you use plain paper, but if you only have lined paper, that is also fine as well.

The first thing I want to do, is write my title at the top of the page.

This way, I know what the story is about and which story I am making my storymap for.

So my story is called "The Little Bird and the Forest Fire." Now, all I'm going to do is I'm going to break down the story into little parts and draw a little picture for each one so that I can remember what happens in each scene.

So let's recap what happened in the story.

I know that the story is about a beautiful forest in India and in the forest, there lives a little bird who loves her home.

So what kind of picture could I draw here for the forest and the little bird? I think I will draw some trees.

And at the top of the tree, I'm going to draw my bird, and to show that she really loves living in the forest.

I'm going to draw a little love heart as well.

The next thing I'm going to draw is an arrow because that's showing that I move on to the next part of the story.

In the next part of the story.

I know that the bird one day sees a terrible fire.

Let's do, she's sitting on her tree and in the distance, maybe there are some mountains, maybe some more trees, in the distance she sees a fire coming.

And maybe she's a little bit shocked.

Notice how I'm not putting a lot of effort into these drawings.

They're just very simple drawings to help me understand what is happening in each one.

I'm going to run out of space here.

So I'm going to draw an arrow here to show how the story is snaking round.

Then what happens? She lived in the forest with lots of her friends.

She lived with the tigers and the elephants, and she lived with the antelope and all those Indian animals.

Hmm.

What happened to them? Oh yeah, that's right.

As she was sitting in her tree, she called down to them and said, "We must save the forest.

What's going to happen?" But instead they all ran away.

So let's draw the elephant.

Who's much bigger than her.

Maybe that we can draw the tiger as well.

And maybe some antelope as well, I can show them all running away, maybe even a snake as well, 'cause there are some snake, end.

So really fierce, strong animals that are all running away.

And I could even do a little speech bubble saying, "Runaway, don't stay here, runaway," "Come with us.

The fire's coming." And what does the little bird say? She says, "No, I will not leave my home.

I love my forest.

I will do anything I can to save it." So what does she decide to do? She finds a river in the forest and she decides that she's going to go down to the river.

And saw the flames.

She's going to collect up water and throw it onto the flames, back and forth, back and forth, she's going to go, throwing the water onto the flames.

Now, up in the heavens, The gods are looking down on her and they are laughing at her.

So we know that the gods are from Hindu culture, in India.

We might have the monkey god, Hanuman.

We might have the elephant god.

We might have some other gods as well.

And they're all laughing at her.

Ha ha ha.

Okay.

And they're all saying, "Look, that little bird will be cooked.

She's too small to beat that fire." Until the eagle god sees her.

Let's draw some wings for the eagle god.

And he looks down at her and admiration and he decides to go down and help her.

And he says, he swoops down to her tree and he says, "Little bird, you're too small to beat this fire." Maybe he's telling her to stop.

"You're too small.

You'll never beat this fire." And she says, "No, I love my forest and I will do anything I can to save it." And this makes the eagle god very, very touched.

So touched that he begins to cry.

And as he cries, The fire begins to die.

And as soon as whole stream of tears is coming down, Eventually the fire goes out.

So an X, the fire goes out.

The bird returns to her tree, which she has saved.

And in the floor of Ash in the next spring, new shoots begin to grow and a new forest is beginning again, even though the bird never gave up hope.

And then we have our storymap.

Amazing.

Now I can look through this map and I can tell exactly what's going on in the story, who the characters are, how it begins, what happens in the middle and what happens at the end.

Fantastic.

Okay.

Now that we've done the storymap together, it's time to pause your video and do your own storymap.

I can't wait to see what drawings you do.

Remember, they don't need to be beautiful, intricate, detailed drawings.

They just need to be simple drawings.

So you can understand that part of the story.

This time you're going to have to stand up, find yourself some space, so you can actually physically step through the story and tell it to yourself.

Okay? I'm not ready to start stepping through my story and performing it for the first time.

I've got my trusty storymap to help me.

I need to go somewhere where I've got lots of room so I can walk through the story.

I'm going to look at each box to help me tell the parts of the story.

And my simple images should be able to remind me and trigger my memory about all the important things in the story.

Let's go.

Once, in a beautiful, luscious leafy forest in India, there lived a tiny little bird who lived on top of the tallest tree.

She loved her forest, she loved the branches, she loved the leaves.

She loved all the blossoms that would bloom in the spring time.

And I'm going to step through to the next part.

Once the little bird saw in the distance, a great thundering, fire, building and burning in the distance.

She looked at it and got a terrible shock, Oh! Oh no, my forest is going to burn down.

What will I do? She looked down all her friends, the elephant, the tiger, the antelope and the snake.

And she called out to them, "Friends, we must save our forest, whatever will we do." But the friends just shook their heads and turned to run away.

"Come with us", they said.

"You will burn in this fire, you're far too small." The little bird shook her head, "No, I love my forest and I will do anything I can to save it." It's time for you to have a go at doing the whole thing on your own.

Use your storymap to remind you of the key parts of the story.

And you have a go at really performing it on your own.

Good luck.

I want you to think about, if you were the little bird at the end of the story, what three words would you use to describe your feelings? I've got mine written down here.

I'm going to share them with you at the beginning of the next lesson.

I want you to have a think about what three words would describe the bird emotions as the story ended.

Would they be good emotions? Would they be negative emotions? Would they be in the between? It's totally up to you and there's no right or wrong answer.

Okay.

Well done for your hard work today.

I was so impressed with all your performance skills.

Great work.

Don't forget to share your work with Oak National.

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