Hello, everyone.

This is Ms. Afzal here again to share some more handwriting with you.

I'm so excited to be here.

I hope you're feeling excited too.

We're going to, as always, do our best.

We are, as always, going to have lots of fun.

Are you ready to begin? Let's get started.

The outcome for today's lesson is, I can correctly form the four joins.

We have a number of keywords in today's lesson.

Let's go through them.

My turn, your turn.

Join, baseline, ascender line, x-height line, dips down.

Fantastic.

I heard those loud and clear.

Let's make sure we're listening out for those words.

Let's think about them.

Let's look out for them.

Let's be curious and interested in those words.

And next, let's find out what's involved in today's lesson, "The review of the four joins with no lead ins." We're going to begin with, can you guess what? The first join.

Next up, the second join.

You've got it.

Then it's the third join, and we'll finish with the fourth join.

So let's begin with the first join.

Let's have a go at our hand squeeze warmup.

I'm going to go first of all, and then it will be your turn.

I'm gonna choose which hand to begin with, this one.

And I'm gonna start by stretching out all my fingers, stretching them really wide, really far apart.

And then I'm gonna slowly bring them in.

And I'm going to imagine I've got something precious in my hand and I'm squeezing and holding it tight, holding something tightly in my hand, something tiny, tiny, and precious.

And then I'm going to open out my fingers into that lovely stretch once again.

And then back into a squeeze, holding something precious and tight.

I'm gonna try with the other hand.

First of all, that lovely big stretch, stretch for my fingers.

And then bringing all those fingers in and squeezing something, holding something precious, holding it tight.

Out to that lovely stretch.

And then fingers in to a lovely squeeze.

Mm, feels great.

Okay, it's your turn.

Choose which hand you're going to begin with.

Put that hand up, open up the fingers, stretch them wide, and then squeeze them tight.

Hold something precious and tiny and tight.

And then stretch and squeeze.

Lovely, other hand.

First of all, stretch.

And then squeeze the hand tight.

Stretch and squeeze.

Oh, lovely job, everybody.

Next, we're going to move on to our wrist circles.

First of all, I'm going to stretch my hands out in front of me.

And then I'm going to pull my fingers in to form fists, and then I'm going to make circles, moving in one direction.

Lovely circles.

And then I'm going to go in the other direction.

This feels good.

This feels fun.

Are you ready to join in? Let's go.

Take your hands, put them out in front of you, form fists.

Let's go, one direction, other direction.

Let's just do it again because it's so much fun.

We can't really stop 'cause we're enjoying ourselves so much.

That's the way to do it.

Here we have some examples of joined letters, joined-up handwriting.

Let's find out some more about this.

Cursive handwriting involves joining letters together without lifting your pencil.

So joining is when we connect.

Joining letters means we're connecting the letters together.

We are linking them together.

How the letters are connected together depends on which letter is joining to which letter.

Cursive letter joins refers to how letters connect together.

Learning the letter joins will improve your cursive handwriting skills, allowing for a smooth flow of handwriting.

It's gonna look good.

It's gonna feel good.

It's really worth going for it and putting in some time and effort to learn our cursive letter joins.

So, mm, I wonder, can you remember, can you think back and remember the first join? Let's remind ourselves.

Here it is.

Here are some examples of the first join.

Now, how is it that the letters are joined from one to the other? Can you have a think about that? Hmm.

Maybe pause and tell someone nearby.

Okay, it's good to be back with you.

What did you come up with? How are these letters joined? Where does the join start, and where does it end? Where does it go from and to? Shall we get a little helping hand to remind us? Here's Aisha, "The first join is from the baseline to the x-height line." Fantastic.

Thanks for helping us out with that, Aisha.

And let's remind ourselves 'cause we've got some keywords there in Aisha's statement.

So the baseline.

The baseline is the line that we can see on our tramlines here that is in green.

This is the baseline.

And a lot of the letters, most of the letters, in fact, sit on the baseline.

How about the x-height line? The x-height line is the dotted line that we can see on these set of tramlines.

And many letters that are x-height letters reach up as high as the x-height line.

X-height letters sit between the x-height line and the baseline.

I wonder, just as a sneaky little extra, if you can pick out which of these letters on the screen are x-height letters.

So pause the video and tell someone nearby.

Okay, well done if you selected the a, the c, the n, and the e.

These are all x-height letters.

They sit between the x-height line and the baseline.

And there is the arrow to show us our first join that Aisha pointed out, which goes from the baseline to the x-height line.

Check for understanding.

Select examples of the first join.

So we can see these pairs of letters here that are joined together, but which of these are joined using the first join? Remember, it goes from the baseline to the x-height line.

So pause the video while you decide which of these are examples of the first join.

Well done if you selected the ig.

We can see the i is finishing at the baseline.

And then there's that join.

It goes all the way up to the x-height line and begins the g.

How about the to? You can see that the t ends at the baseline.

And there's our first join, going from the baseline up to the x-height line to take us into the o.

Fantastic if you spotted these two examples of the first join.

For your first task, I would like you to practise the first join.

I'd like you to go over the grey examples.

We've got ar and an.

Next, I'd like you to try using the starting dot.

And after that, I'd like you to complete two lines independently, flowingly, smoothly, enthusiastically, on your tramlines.

So pause the video here and have a go at this task, and I'll see you when you're finished.

Okay, it's good to be back with you.

And I'm really curious, how did you get on with this task with forming your first joins? Did you start at the x-height line? Did you join from the baseline up to the x-height line? And did you keep your pencil on the page? So remember, that's part of joinings, that we keep our pencil on the page while we join and link those letters together.

Now I'd like you to find your best join, circle it, and celebrate.

Well done.

You deserve a celebration.

Now it's time for us to move on to the, yep, you've guessed it, it's time for the second join.

Here we go.

Hmm.

Can you remember the second join? How does the second join go? Where does it join from? Where does it start, and where does it go to? I'd like you to pause the video now for a moment and tell someone nearby if you can remember where does the second join begin, and where does it end? Okay, I wonder what you came up with.

Shall we have a little reminder? Here we go.

Here's our visual reminder.

Here are some examples of the second join.

Take a look at that, el, mb, ck, and at.

What do you notice about where the first letter ends? And where is that join going from and to? Is it what you shared with your partner? Let's see what Jun has to say.

So, "The second join is from the baseline to above the x-height line towards the ascender line." All right, thank you, Jun.

And we can see that with the el.

Let's take a look at that one first of all.

So that e finishes at the baseline, and then the join is going from, we're leading out from the e, and we're going all the way up towards the ascender line.

Same with the mb.

We're going from the m at the baseline all the way up towards the ascender line.

ck, same thing.

at, a little bit different.

Here are our arrows to show us that join.

The t, at is a little bit different.

The only letter that doesn't reach all the way up to the ascender line when using this join is the letter t.

So the letter t goes midway between the x-height line and the ascender line.

And I realise we haven't talked about the ascender line.

This is one of our keywords, so let's really get into this.

I wonder if you can spot which of these lines on your set of tramlines is the ascender line.

Can you tell someone nearby? Yep, you've got it.

It's the very top line.

The top line in our set of lines on the tramlines is the ascender line.

And letters that have ascenders, most of them reach up to the ascender line.

So here we have our second join.

Check for understanding.

Select examples of the second join.

So take a look at these three pairs of letters that have been joined together.

Which ones are examples of the second join? Remember where it goes from and to.

So pause the video now while you select examples of the second join.

Well done if you selected the nk and the tt.

So we can see from the n, where the n ends, we have the lead-out, which is going from the baseline all the way up to the ascender line to begin the k.

How about the tt? We are going from the end of the t at the baseline, so we're leading out from there, and we're going all the way up to in between the x-height line and the ascender line.

So we're going towards the ascender line, but not all the way up to begin our letter t.

Well done if you selected these examples of the second join.

And now it's time for the second task and practising the second join.

I'd like you to go over the great examples of mb and el.

Next, try using the starting dot.

And finally, complete two lines independently on your tramlines.

Enjoy every join, enjoy every letter, and I'll see you when you're finished.

Pause the video here.

Okay, it's good to be back with you.

And how did you get on with those joins? Did you start at the correct starting point? So as we can see, the mb, the m starts at the x-height line, whereas the e starts midway between the x-height line and the baseline.

Did you join from the baseline all the way up to the ascender line? Did you keep your pencil on the page? Did you enjoy these joins? Circle your best one and celebrate.

Hello again.

It's time for the third join.

Here we go.

Hmm, can you remember the third join? How does it go? Pause the video and tell someone nearby if you can remember how to make the third join.

All right, let's remind ourselves with these visuals.

Oh, these are quite helpful.

I can see that third join very clearly.

I wonder if you can.

Is it what you said to your partner? Let's get a little helpful reminder of how to make the third join from Alex, "The third join is from the x-height line to the x-height line." Yeah, it's going across.

So what it does is it just dips down, and it goes across.

Here we are, like so.

The join starts at the x-height line.

It dips below the x-height line and back up to join to the next letter.

That's a really nice, very straightforward join.

X-height line to the x-height line, just a little dip down below.

Check for understanding.

Select examples of the third join.

Take a look at these pairs of joined letters.

Which ones are joined using the third join Alex just talked us through? Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you selected the om and the oi.

We can see in the om that when we finished forming the letter o, we dip down, we go from the x-height line and we dip down below the x-height line, and we come back up to the x-height line to start the m.

With the oi, it's the same.

After we form the o, we go from our lead-out, and we dip down below the x-height line and back up, and we form the letter i.

Well done if you selected these examples of the third join.

For your next task, I'd like you to practise the third join.

First of all, go over the grey examples of oi and ow.

After that, try using the starting dot.

And finally, complete two lines independently on your tramlines.

Pause the video here to complete your task, and I'll see you when you're finished.

It's good to see you back again, and I love that you've completed these third joins so fantastically.

Just checking, did you join from the x-height line to the x-height line? Did you leave enough space between the two letters with a dip down? So, let's just go over that keyword of ours, dip down.

So what we're doing, to dip means we're just going under a little bit.

So we're dipping, we're going under the x-height line, and then back up again.

And did you keep your pencil on the page? Which is so important when we're joining letters.

Circle your best join and celebrate.

The time has come for the fourth join.

Here it comes.

And can you remember the fourth join? How does it go? Pause the video and tell someone nearby.

Okay, let's remind ourselves.

Aha, here it is.

Here's the fourth join.

Is this what you discussed with your partner? I hope so.

Let's see what Izzy has to say, "The fourth join goes from the x-height line up towards the ascender line." Alright, thank you, Izzy.

And there are those arrows to show us.

So helpful.

So the w, there we are, we've finished the w at the x-height line.

And then we lead out, and here's our join.

It's going from the x-height line up, oh, and for the l, it goes all the way to the ascender line.

Let's have a look at the oh.

The o, we're finished forming the o, and then we lead out from the x-height line, and we keep going all the way up to the ascender line.

Amazing.

ol, it's the same.

X-height line all the way to the ascender line.

However, the only letter that doesn't reach all the way to the ascender line when using this join is the letter t.

So as we can see with the ot, we're going from the x-height line up towards the ascender line, but not all the way.

We stop about halfway between the x-height line and the ascender line for the letter t.

Check for understanding.

Select examples of the fourth join.

Take a look at these pairs of joined letters.

Which ones are examples of the fourth join? Pause the video while you decide.

Well done if you selected ok and of.

We can see with both of these, the join is going from the x-height line up towards the ascender line.

And now it's time for your fourth and final task, which is practising the fourth join.

I'd like you to go over the grey examples, ol and ok.

Try using the starting dot, and then complete two lines independently on your tramlines.

Enjoy every join, and I'll see you when you're done.

Pause the video here.

It's good to back with you.

How did it go forming the fourth join? Did you join from the x-height line up to the ascender line? Did you go all the way up to the ascender line because these letters, the l and the k, are ones that reach all the way to the ascender line? Did you keep your pencil on the page? Did you have a good time? Did you have an okay time? I hope so.

Circle your best join and celebrate.

In our lesson, "Review of the four joins with no lead ins," we have covered the following.

Cursive handwriting involves joining letters together without lifting your pencil.

How the letters are connected together depends on which letter is joining to which letter.

The first join connects from the baseline to the x-height line.

The second join connects from the baseline to the ascender line.

The third join connects from the x-height line to the x-height line.

And the fourth join connects from the x-height line to the ascender line.

Really, really, really well done, everybody because we have been through all four of the joins.

Well done for remembering and practising all four of these joins.

It's been great to be with you, and I hope you're feeling really proud of yourselves and pleased with all your hard work with making these joins.

I look forward to seeing you at another lesson.

Bye for now.