Hello, everyone.

This is Miss 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 fourth join.

We've got some keywords in today's lesson.

Let's go through them one at a time.

My turn, your turn.

Join, lead out, ascender line, x-height line, loop.

Fantastic, it was great to hear those loud and clear.

Let's make sure we look out for those words.

Let's listen out for them.

Let's think carefully about them.

Let's be curious and enthusiastic about these keywords.

So here is our lesson today, the fourth join: ol, ok, and of with no lead in.

And it's got three parts to it.

First of all, handwriting warm-up.

Next, the fourth join, ol and ok.

And finally, the fourth join, of.

Are you ready to begin with some handwriting warm-ups and why are they important? Before starting to write, it is important to warm up your hand and your wrist muscles.

Your hands and wrists get stronger when you exercise them.

So warming up your hands before writing will help to improve your handwriting.

Let's have a go at our hand squeeze warm-up.

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 then 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 all 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, forming 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 'em out in front of you, form fists.

Let's go one direction, other direction.

And 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.

Practising writing patterns helps us to prepare for writing and joining letters.

Look at these lovely patterns we can see on the screen.

Let's have a go at making some patterns.

Oh, this is one of my favourites.

I think we're gonna enjoy this one.

So I'm gonna go first.

Okay, here I go.

I'm gonna go down, loop, and around, down, loop, and around, down, loop, and around.

I'm gonna go backwards 'cause this is too much fun to stop.

Down, loop, and around, down, loop, and around, down, loop, and around.

Oh yes, that was great fun.

It's time for you to make some loops in the air.

Let's go.

Down, loop, and around, down, loop, and around, down, loop, and around.

Should we do some really big ones? Down, loop, and around, down, loop, and around, down, loop, and around.

Oh yes, loving the loops.

And now, it's time for your first task.

I would like you to copy and continue these patterns using your tripod grip.

So we've got the lovely looping pattern that we've just done and we've got some more lines, some tall lines, and some shorter lines.

So remember, don't lift your pencil when forming the pattern.

Focus on keeping the movement smooth and flowing.

And I hope you enjoy all of these movements and all of the patterns.

Pause the video while you have a go at this task and I'll see you when you're finished.

It's good to be back with you.

Now, I have got some questions.

Did you use your tripod grip while you made these patterns? Did you keep your pencil on the page? And, was your movement smooth and flowing? And did you enjoy them? I really hope so.

And now, it's time for us to look at the fourth join, ol and ok.

So here are some letters that have been joined together.

Let's remind ourselves a little bit about joins.

So cursive handwriting involves joining letters together without lifting your pencil.

And joining is one of our keywords.

To join is when you connect and you bring something together.

So we are joining our letters 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 and there are a number of different letters joins.

And learning these letter joins will improve your cursive handwriting skills, allowing for a smooth flow of handwriting.

It's gonna feel good.

It's going to look good.

Let's put some time and effort into it.

The first join we learned is shown below.

Take a look at these joins.

So they have all got something in common.

They are all joined using the first join.

What do you notice about where does that join start from and where does it go to? Should we get Aisha to remind us? Thank you, Aisha.

The first join is from the baseline to the x-height line, like so.

Fantastic, that's very clearly illustrated, Aisha, thank you.

Next one is the second join.

Now, what do you notice about where this join goes from and to? Take a close look.

Now all of these letters, these pairs of letters.

Did you notice this? Let's see what Jim tells us.

The second join is from the baseline to above the x-height line towards the ascender line, like so.

Fantastic, thanks for sharing that with us, Jim.

And we can see that some of these letters are going all the way up to the ascender line, whereas the letter T goes to in between the x-height line and the ascender line.

And the third join we learnt is shown below.

Take a look at these letters.

What do you notice about the join here? Where is it going from and where is it going to? Should we get Alex to help us out? The third join is from the x-height line to the x-height line, like so.

Fantastic, so clear and helpful, Alex, thank you.

Check for understanding.

Select the correct third join.

Which of these om's is joined correctly? Pause the video while you decide.

Well done, if you selected the om above the C.

This has got the join going from the x-height line to the x-height line.

Now, let's take a look at an example of our fourth join.

What do you notice? What do you see? Anything you're spotting here about these letters.

Pause the video while you tell someone nearby what you can see.

Mm hm, did you spot that lead out? So a lead out, this is one of our keywords.

So a lead out is a special line that takes us out of the letter.

It does what it says, it leads us out of the letter.

And what it does, in fact, when we're joining is it takes us into the next letter.

So there's a very important part of cursive handwriting.

Did you notice that the two letters are joined together? So what do you notice about how these letters are joined? Should we find out a little bit more? So the last letter has a lead out.

Yeah, good point.

Letter O has a starting point on the x-height line.

Now there's one of our keywords, x-height line.

So the x-height line is the dotted line that you can see on the set of tram lines.

And letters that are x-height letters, such as the O or an A or an N or an M, go up as high as the x-height line.

The fourth join starts at the x-height line and it goes up towards the ascender line.

Ascender line is another one of our keywords and the ascender line is the top line in our set of tram lines.

The letters L and K reach all the way to the ascend line and you don't lift your pencil when forming the join.

Here's Izzy, to remind us that the fourth join goes from the x-height line up towards the ascender line like so.

Thank you, Izzy for making that so nice and clear for us.

All right, it's time for us to have some fun and form these joins in the air.

I'm gonna go first, joining ol and ok, and then it will be your turn.

All right, I begin with ol.

I'm going to start by forming my letter O.

I'm gonna go anti-clockwise, form that lovely, circular letter O, and then to join, I'm gonna keep my pencil on the page and go all the way up to the ascender line.

And then, I'll form my letter L, finish with a lead out on the baseline.

I'll show you one more time.

Here's my O.

And then to join, I keep my pencil on the page and I go up to the ascender line, form the L, lead out of the baseline.

It's your turn.

Let's do this together.

Ready, line, go.

Anti-clockwise to form that letter O.

Here's the join.

Go up to the ascender line, form the L, lead out at the baseline.

One more.

Here's the O.

To join, we keep going from the lead out, keep your pencil on the page, up to the ascender line, form the L, lead out at the baseline.

Those ol's look really fantastic.

And now it's time for me to form the ok join.

I'm going to begin at the x-height line, with my O going into clockwise.

And then to join, I'll keep my pencil on the page from the lead out angle up to the ascender line.

I'm gonna form my letter K, quite like the loop, and that little diagonal line lead out at the baseline.

It's your turn to form okay.

Ready? Here's the O.

Let's go anti-clockwise.

And to join, let's keep going.

Keep your pencil on the page from the lead out.

Go up to the ascender line, form your letter K, finish with the lead out at the baseline.

Let's do one more.

Ready, line, go.

Here's the O.

Here's the join going from that lead out all the way up to the ascender line.

Form your letter K.

Finish with a lead out at the baseline.

Ok, okay to the ok's.

I'm going to show you how to form the fourth join, ol.

I'm sitting comfortably and I'm holding my pen in the tripod grip.

I'm gonna say to myself, ready, line, go.

And I'll put my pen at the x-height line and go anti-clockwise to form the letter O.

Then to join, I'm gonna keep my pen on the page and I'm gonna go from that lead out, keep going all the way up to the ascender line.

I'm gonna form my letter L and finish with a lead out at the baseline.

Let's try that again.

From the x-height line, going anti-clockwise to form my letter O.

And then to join, I'm gonna keep my pen on the page, go up to the ascender line, then come all the way down to the baseline, and finish with the lead out there.

Let's try one more.

Here's the O.

Here's the join, keep my pen going from that lead out up to the ascender line.

And there's the L with the lead out at the baseline.

I'm gonna show you how to form the fourth join, ok.

I'm sitting comfortably.

I'm holding my pen in the tripod grip and I'm saying to myself, ready, line, go.

Then, I'm gonna form my letter O going anti-clockwise.

And I'll make that join by going from the x-height line up to the ascender line, form my letter K, and I'll finish with a lead out at the baseline.

Let's try that again.

Here's the O and here's my join.

Keep my pen on the page and I go up towards the ascender line, form the letter K, finish with the lead out at the baseline.

One more.

Here's the O.

Here's the join.

The pen goes from the lead out up to the ascender line, form a letter K, and the lead out at the baseline, ok.

Check for understanding.

Select the correct join.

Which of these ol's is formed correctly? Pause video while you decide.

Well done, if you selected the first one.

This has got the join going from the x-height line up towards the ascender line.

And now, select the correct join between the O and the K.

Which ok is okay? Pause the video while you decide.

Well done, if you selected the okay above the C.

This has the join going from the x-height line up to the ascender line.

And the K has a lovely lead out at the baseline.

It's all okay.

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

First of all, go over the grey examples.

Next, try using the starting dot.

And finally, complete two lines independently on your tramlines.

After that, I'd like you to practise the fourth join, ok.

First of all, go over the grey examples.

Next, try using the starting dot.

And finally, complete two lines independently on your tramlines.

Pause the video while you have a go at this task.

Enjoy every movement, keep it smooth, keep it flowing.

I'll see you when you're finished.

It's good to be back with you.

And I am very curious.

I want to know how you got on.

Did you start at the x-height line? Did you join from the x-height line to the ascender line? And did you keep your pencil on the page? I really hope so.

And I hope you had a lot of fun.

Circle your best join and celebrate.

And it's time now for the fourth join, of.

Here it is.

Take a look at this example of our fourth join.

What do you notice? What do you see? Tell someone nearby and pause the video here.

Did you notice that lead in loop going up towards the ascender line? Did you notice the lead out loop going down to the descender line? This is a very special letter string, the O and the F, because it's got all these lovely loops, lead in, lead out.

We're looping all over the place and it's a lot of fun.

These two letters are joined together and we have the word loop there and the word loop is one of our keywords.

So a loop is a curve that bends around and then crosses over itself.

So let's find out more about how these letters are joined.

Take a look at that of.

Hmm, what did you notice? Did you notice these things? The letter O has a starting point on the x-height line.

Remember, that's our dotted line.

The fourth join is from the x-height line up towards the ascender line, the top line on our set of tramlines.

When joining to the letter F, there is a lead in and a lead out loop.

Remember that loop, that curve that bends around and crosses itself.

The lead out loop finishes at the baseline.

And here's Izzy, to remind us the fourth join goes from the x-height line up towards the ascender line like so.

Thank you, Izzy.

Alright, it is time for us to have a lot of fun while we make the join of in the air.

I'm gonna go first.

I'll be using my finger.

After that, it will be your turn.

I'm gonna begin at the x-height line.

I'll form my O going anti-clockwise.

And then to join, I'm gonna keep my pencil on the page from that lead out.

And I'm gonna go up towards the ascender line to form the lead in loop.

And then, I'm gonna go down to the descender line to form the lead out loop.

And I'll finish with the lead out just above the baseline.

Oh, that felt pretty good.

It's quite an interesting letter join to form.

There's a lot going on here.

Let me show you one more time.

Here's the O, go anti-clockwise, form my letter O.

Then to join, I keep my pencil on the page from that lead out.

And I'm going up towards the ascender line to form that lead in loop.

Then, I go all the way down to the descender line for the lead out loop.

Finish with the lead out at the baseline.

It's your turn.

Ready, line, go.

Form the letter O going anti-clockwise.

And then to join, keep your pencil on the page from the lead out, going all the way up towards the ascender line to form the lead in loop.

Going down to the descender line to form the lead out loop.

Finish with the lead out at the baseline, just above the baseline.

One more.

Here's the O, anti-clockwise.

To join, let's keep our pencil on the page from the lead out going all the way up towards the ascender line for that lead in loop, going all the way down to the descender line for the lead out loop.

Finish just above the baseline.

Oh yes, those of's are looking very, very fine.

I'm going to show you how to form the fourth join, of.

I'm sitting comfortably.

My pen is in the tripod grip.

I'm gonna say to myself, "Ready, line, go." And I'll begin with my O starting at the x-height line, going anti-clockwise, forming my letter O.

And then to join, I'm gonna keep my pen on that lead out and I'm gonna go all the way up to the ascender line to form the lead in loop.

And then, I'm gonna go down to the descender line to form the lead out loop.

And I'll finish with a lead out just above the baseline.

Let's try that again.

There's my O.

And then to join, I'm gonna keep my pen going all the way up towards the ascender line.

There's my lead in loop.

Then, I'm going down to the descender line.

There's my lead out loop.

And finish with that lead out just above the baseline.

One more.

Here's the O.

Here comes the join, going up towards the ascender line, lead in loop down to the descender line, lead out loop, lead out just above the baseline Check for understanding.

Select the correct join.

Which of these of's is joined correctly? I'm not so sure about a couple of them, but one of these joins is really, really looking good.

Pause the video while you decide which one it is.

Well done, if you selected the first join.

This has got the join going from the O up towards the ascender line for that lead in loop and down to the descender line for the lead out loop.

And the lead out finishes just past the baseline.

For your task, I'd like you to practise the fourth join, of.

First of all, go over the grey examples.

Next, try using the starting dot.

And finally, complete two lines independently, flowingly, enjoyably on your tramlines.

I'll see you when you're finished.

Pause the video here.

How did you get on? Did you enjoy those of's? Did you use the correct starting point at the x-height line? Did you join using a lead out loop going all the way up to the ascender line? Did you remember to add in your lead out loop going all the way down to the descender line? Circle your best join and celebrate.

In our lesson, the fourth join, ol, ok, and of with no lead in, we covered the following.

Cursive letter joins refer to how the letters connect together.

The letter O has a starting point on the x-height line.

The fourth join starts at the x-height line and reaches up towards the ascender line.

The letters L, K, and F both reach up to the ascender line.

Letter F has a lead in and a lead out loop.

You do not lift your pencil when forming the join.

It's been wonderful to be with you today and to practise the fourth join.

I especially love those lead in loops and the lead out loops.

You did a great job.

I'll see you at the next lesson.

Bye for now.