Creating magic with personalities and adjectival agreement
Creating magic with personalities and adjectival agreement !
We want to help all our young learners in UKS2 understand the use of Grammar to speak and write correctly . We are taking a "magical " approach with adjectival agreement and describing ourselves in our Year 6 focus on presentations about ourselves .
We are aboutto look at adjectival agreement with adjectives to describe our personalqualities . We have looked at adjectival agreement before with clothes andanimals but somehow this is different and more personal!
So I havebeen trying to think of ways to make this a physical learning activity and thisis what I have created .
You will need:
2 A4 cards ,six small word cards , alarge envelope and some blu-tac
The children will need whiteboardsand a piece of paper for their draft tweets
One A4 card has a picture of a boy onit and you are going to add the phrase in the target language "I am ....."
The second A4 has a picture of a girlon it and again you will add the phrase in the target language "I am
You just need to add some target language. Here's on of the cards I use
You then have two sets of adjectivesthat can describe someone - pick regular adjectives where the ending willchange letter when used with the girl for example ……………..
Put the feminine agreement adjectivesin the envelope and on the front of the envelope draw a large magic wand.
At the start of the lesson , explain thatthe class are going to try describing themselves. Can the class be your languagedetectives?
Show the class themagic envelope , blu-tac this to the wall and say that the class are goingto help you to do some "language magic"
First
Show the children the key adjectiveswith no agreement and practise the pronunciation of the key adjectives.
Discuss the meaning and add actions .
Create with the class the facialexpressions for each quality – what might a “strongman” look like facially? Howdo you look when you are shy etc?
With the class perform an adjectivalexpressions face warm up . This involves the children moving their face toexpress the emotion or quality e.g. clever/ shy/ strong etc as you call themout. Make the activity quicker and quicker by saying the adjectives faster andfaster
Second :
Give out a picture card of a girl toa girl and a picture card of a boy to a boy and ask them to stand at the front.
At the bottom of each card iswritten "I am ...." in the target language . Explain that thismeans "I am ...." . Can the class practise this with you.
It's two sounds- so ask the children to practise the soundswith you and add two points of a finger at themselves - one for each sound .
Can they sound proud … they aremaking announcement about themselves. Ask them to say it at least 5 times each time moreconfidently !
Now add an adjective e.g. "I am strong" . (Children should also do the actions - twopoints of finger for "I am " andfacial expression for adjective). Can they sound like the “strong man”, the shyperson , the intelligent person etc .
Ask them to share the way they saythe statements with a partner.
Practise asking the question “Whatare you like?”
Can the children ask and answer thequestion around their tables- just usingthe phrases you have practised as a class?
Play Physical Quiz Quiz Swap .
Each person says and performs asabove one of the three phrases – all masculine adjectival agreement for now.
They walk round the room , shakehands with another child- say and act out their statement and they must take on the statement and the actions of the other child and move on toa new partner saying this new statement and with these new actions . The QuizQuiz Swap starts again!
Third
Show the children a masculine agreement adjective word card - so one of the words you have alreadypractised and shown them . Introduce all three words and ask for threevolunteers to stand to the left of the child holding the picture of theboy
Can the class help you say and then write three sentences about the boy in firstperson singular e.g. “ je suis fort “ ? You are all going to write these sentences in the air with imaginary magic wands .All the words they need are on the cards that they can see at the front of theclassroom ?
Now can the children tell a partnerwhat they wrote in the air.
Take feedback and listen to sentencesfrom volunteers
Fourth
Now ask them why you have a picture ofa girl with the same phrase?
Give them a clue and say it's all todo with the magic in the envelope and point to the envelope you blu-tacked tothe wall
Ask them to discuss possibilities with a partner.
Take feedback - don't give any answers away yet though!
Ask them to discuss with a partner which words they could they use from the boys sentences about the girl ?
Do they think they can say a sentenceusing the girl not the boy . They will say sentences that they wrote in themasculine etc . Agree with them but show them the envelope with the magicwand on it the correct spelling of the adjective - so from the envelope youwill produce the card with the feminine agreement spelling of each of the threeadjectives . Ask three volunteers to stand to left of girl . Can the class spotspelling changes i.e. the extra letter?
Can the class help you make a simple rule to help the class ? Ask them to discuss this first witha partner .
Fifth
Blu-tac the two pictures to flipchart with the three correctly agreed adjectives (masculine or feminine) to theleft of the correct picture
Make it a class challenge. Askthe children to write a statement as if they were the boy on their whiteboards- I might start with air writing again as this is non-threatening andinclusive.
Repeat the activity with thegirl
Ask the children to share with theclass what they have written . write two correct examples on the whiteboard .
Look at the rule and highlight theadded letter.
Ask the class if they had to writethe spell on the magic wand what would it be - effectively you want the classto help you to write the rule they have been practising. I would write this upon a magic wand template and place this on our languages working wall - toremind them.
To you class Magicwand add a tag that says "Our class magic rule for the spelling of adjectives whendescribing a person is ……………………”
Sixth
Can they write one sentence aboutthemselves?
Firstly let them write sentences withthe words on the board .
Secondly remove the words as theybecome more competent and encourage independence .
Thirdly introduce two new regular agreementadjectives and let them practise usingthese adjectives and direct the class asto whether they are describing a male or a female by placing the adjective nextto either A4 boy or girl picture card
Fourthly can they write two moresentences about themselves? .
Extend the activity….., can theywrite a truthful sentence about themselves and use a bi-lingual dictionary tofind the word to describe themselves and add an adjectival ending if necessary.
Andfinally….
Set up a draft tweet activity ...ourchildren love the draft tweets .
Can they write a draft tweet dialoguebetween two characters- one tweet per person in the dialogue . Ask the childrento select a favourite character from a book -one male character and one femalecharacter or a famous character from a history project or two imaginarycharacters from an Art project . Canthey think of a personality trait . Can they remember how to ask the question “Whatare you like? Can they write the name phrase to introduce the character “I amcalled ……”.
Each child should attempt to write onetweet from the boy and one tweet from the girl in first person singular . Keepto regular agreement adjectives . Give the children a list to select from Remindthem they only have 140 characters!
And as a follow up ...
Why not create a two sided concertina character .I was inspired by this cartoon on this site educationcenter. com
And as a follow up ...
Why not create a two sided concertina character .I was inspired by this cartoon on this site educationcenter. com
I would put a male and female head on this character . One side would be male and one side would be female . I would ask the children using the same set of regular ending adjectives to complete the concertina character as above but in the target language for the female concertina character on one side and on the other side for the male concertina character