Lesson video

Good morning everyone! And welcome to today's lesson.

My name is Mrs Smith and in the lesson today we'll be looking at the function of fronted adverbials.

So, when you're ready, let's get started.

In this lesson you'll need an exercise book or some paper to write on, a pencil or a pen to write with, and remember to find somewhere really calm and quiet, so that you're able to use your brain as much as possible throughout the lesson today.

If you need to go find any of these things, pause the video now, so that you're ready for learning.

So, in the lesson we'll begin by first looking at a sentence and correcting a sentence before we explore fronted adverbials.

And at the end of the lesson you'll have the opportunity to practise writing your own fronted adverbials to support your writing, later on in the unit.

So, we'll start today's lesson spotting mistakes in my sentences.

These are easy mistakes to make.

So, let me read the first sentence for you and you can follow on screen.

Across the frosty terrain, a familiar figure and his loyal companion trudges through the deep snow which cushioned their feet with every step.

And my second sentence.

As he scanned the perimeter, he tugged the googles from his weathered face.

Can you pause the video and see, if you can spot the mistakes that I've made in both of my sentences.

Okay, let's have look and show me whether you found the mistakes.

And these are really easy mistakes to make.

In the first sentence I wrote: Across the frosty terrain, a familiar figure and his loyal companion trudges through the deep snow.

And that verb "trudges" should've been in the past tense, so that it agreed with the rest of the tense in my sentence.

Can you just think, what is the past tense for the verb "trudges" that's in the present tense? That's right, it's trudged.

That -ed past tense ending.

And in the second sentence, as he scanned the perimeter.

I missed the comma after perimeter.

Why do I need a comma after the word perimeter in this sentence? Good job, it's because it comes after the subordinate clause.

And we know, we need a comma to mark the point between the subordinate clause and the main clause.

And if the subordinate clause is first, I need a comma after it.

I also missed a full stop at the end of my sentence, which is a really, really easy thing to do.

So, just check, if you got full stops at the end of your sentence in your next piece of writing.

Fronted adverbials can either be one word or a group of words used at the start of a sentence.

So, these are our fronted adverbials.

And this is what we're going to focus on and explore in today's lesson.

One word is an adverb in front of a sentence.

A group of words will form an adverbial phrase at the beginning of the sentence.

And remember, that a phrase does not contain a verb.

So, let's have a look at two examples to help us to understand this.

In the first sentence we've got: Gently, Mrs Coulter stroked her golden daemon.

One word, fronted adverbial, is our adverb "gently".

You can see that circled in the sentence.

The second sentence reads, with steady hands, Lord Asriel removed his trusty glasses.

So, the group of words that forms and adverbial phrase? That's right, that's "with steady hands".

And it's at the front of the sentence, so it's a fronted adverbial.

So, fronted adverbials then give us extra information.

They tell us either about time, place or the manner in which the verb in this sentence is carried out.

So, they either tell us when something happened, where it happened or how it happened.

So, let's have a look at that sentence again.

We've got: With steady hands, Lord Asriel removed his trusty glasses.

Does it tell us when, where or how, that frontal adverbial? It's right, it tells us how.

It tells us how he removed his glasses.

And removed is the verb in the main clause.

With steady hands, Lord Asriel removed his trusty glasses.

So, in the following examples, we're going to think do the following fronted adverbials give information about time, manner or place? Do the fronted adverbials tell us when, where or how something happened? Over the horizon, a distant figure appeared with his trusted daemon.

So, tell us, when, where or how? Point to which one you think.

Absolutely, it tells us where.

It tells us where the distant figure appeared from.

Over the horizon.

Let's look at the next one.

High above the mountains of Svalbard, the sun's rays kissed the snow-capped summits.

So, first of all locate that fronted adverbial.

There it is.

And now think, does it tell us when, where or how the main clause verb happens? It's another where, isn't it? It tells us where the sun's rays kissed the snow-capped mountains.

And it happened high above the mountains of Svalbard.

Softly, Mrs Coulter whispered to her golden daemon.

Find that frontal adverbial.

There it is.

It's one word, it's an adverb in the beginning of the sentence.

Is it an adverb telling us when, where or how? Point to which one you think.

That's right, it tells us how.

It tells us how she whispered.

Good job! Late in the evening, the children argued in front of the college gates.

Find the fronted adverbial.

Late in the evening.

Does it tell us when, where or how? Point to which one you think.

Great job, it tells us when the children were arguing.

Late in the evening.

So, one more thing to know about fronted adverbials and this is a really important thing.

Fronted adverbial need a comma after them.

So have a look at these two sentences as examples.

We've got: Late in the evening, the children argued in front of the college gates.

And that comma needs to be in our sentence after the adverbial phrase.

Late in the evening, the children argued in front of the college gates.

In the second sentence, softly, Mrs Coulter whispered to her golden daemon.

So, that time it's after the adverb, which is our fronted adverbial.

So now, let's look at sorting some fronted adverbials.

You're getting so good at this technical aspect of sentence writing.

So, we've got three boxes, we've got time, manner and place.

Because we know, fronted adverbials can tell us when, how or were the verb takes place.

Now, let's read the frontal adverbials at the bottom that we're going to need to sort.

We've got "with aggression", "early morning", "late at night", "furiously", "over the horizon" and "across the rocky ridge".

So, your job, and you might create a little table with three columns, time, manner and place or you could use your screen and sort these on screen.

Please, just sort those into the right boxes.

So pause and do that now.

Okay, let's have a look and see which frontal adverbial lives in which of the boxes.

We have two frontal adverbials indicating time, those were "late at night" and "early morning".

Both phrases, more than one word.

We had two to show manner, how something happened.

"With aggression" and "furiously".

"With aggression" is a really lovely way to build a fronted adverbial into your sentence and have a bit of variety, so that it's not always a one word adverb.

So, you might remember that as trick next time for your writing.

And finally then, there were two that indicated the place.

"Over the horizon" and "across the rocky ridge".

So, now comes your task today.

And in your task today, you need to write three sentences about the image below.

In this image you can see Lord Asreil surrounded with Stelmaria next to him.

And for the sentences that you're writing, you need to make sure that you include a frontal adverbial.

Three sentences about this image and they all need to have a frontal adverbial.

Now, that adverbial might be one word, an adverb, telling you how Lord Asriel is doing something or when something is happening.

It might be an adverbial phrase, a group of words, that doesn't contain a verb.

And try and have at least one of each.

So, a bit of variety in your sentences today.

So, you should write those down for this image on your paper.

So pause and off you go! Okay, well done for having your go with those sentences.

Let's have a look at what marking and going through your sentences to check that you included the right things might look like.

My written sentence for the image that you were also looking at.

My sentence is: With Stelmaria at his side, Lord Asriel held his weapon tightly and he refused to give up.

So let's look at the key things that we were aiming to include in today's lesson.

If you remembered to use a capital in the beginning of your sentence, than you can give yourself a tick.

So, a tick at the beginning for capital letter.

Now, that one is really important, because we've said earlier as well that after your adverbial phrase or your fronted adverbial, that might just be a word, you need to make sure that you've got a comma.

So, give yourself a tick, if you have one or just pop one in after your fronted adverbial, if you didn't remember that one.

At the end we need a full stop.

I forgot my full stop at the beginning of this lesson.

So, make sure there is a full stop and give yourself a tick for that one.

Now, let's just look, here we've got our fronted adverbial and it's an adverbial phrase.

So, can you find your fronted adverbial? And just remind yourself whether it is an adverbial phrase or if it is one word, and it's an adverb, it's a frontal adverbial.

Congratulations! That is the end of today's lesson.

Lots and lots of grammar focus in today's lesson.

We looked at correcting a sentence.

We explored fronted adverbials and then you've practised writing your own sentences with fronted adverbials.

And that's all for our literacy lesson today.

Hope you have a lovely rest of your day.