In grammar, we started to build single clause sentences with the understanding that a single clause sentence has a subject and a verb. In addition to this, we also had some pronouns which replaced the noun. This avoids repetition. We were encouraged to use the script, what’s the first verb? Who or what is doing? This gives us focus when we are completing the activities.
We continued to identify leftovers (parts of our clause that are not a subject or a verb) during our grammar lesson on Monday. However, we discussed how the sequence we had been spotting during the last few lessons (subject, verb, leftovers) doesn’t always apply and it will not be like that in every single clause we write. As such, we looked at a few examples of where the positioning of these differed. We made sure we followed our script which required us to identify the verb first, then the subject, then the leftovers in order to label these accurately.
Today, we created some single-clause sentences. We had to identify the subject (s), the verb (v) and add the correct punctuation.
Towards the end of this week, we have taken our knowledge of single-clause sentences to the next step by working with ‘leftovers’ – extra information in the sentence that is neither a subject nor a verb. We still had to follow our script in order to identify our verb, followed by our subject but we realised that once we had done this, there was extra words that we hadn’t labelled. We then had to decide which clause these ‘leftovers’ belonged to. Once we’d done this, we could ask ourselves when our subject had stopped doing or being in order to identify the end of the clause. Once we knew we’d got a full, independent clause with a subject and a verb, we were able to add our full stops and capital letters.
After we had done this, we then looked at what these types of single-clause sentences would look like with ‘to be’ verbs, instead of action verbs and repeated the same steps as before.
Following our success of identifying single clause sentences, we moved on to look at what these may look like with pronouns. We worked in pairs to identify repeated words within two sentences that follow on from each other, discussing which pronouns we could use instead, to avoid repetition. We then used this knowledge to follow our script in order to identify verbs and subjects and then add in full stops and capital letters once we were sure we had two full, independent clauses with a subject and a verb.
On Monday, Crew Hamill moved their grammar to the next stage as they began looking at single-clause sentences. We looked at what a clause was (a group of words that include a subject and a verb) and then used our prior knowledge of identifying subjects and verbs to figure out where our single clause sentences were. We followed our script, identifying the first verb in the sentence. One we had this, we identified the subject of that verb. We repeated this until all our of verbs and subjects had been identified and then asked ourselves when the verb ended so that we could put a full stop as we had a full, independent clause with a subject and a verb. We could the go back and add in capital letters.
As our do now, we consolidated our learning about regular and irregular verbs as this was an area from out touchdown on verbs that we need to continue drip feeding into our learning.
We have now moved on to new learning in grammar where we need to understand the subject and verb within a sentence. We used a script to help us identify the verb and then who or what was doing the action.
For example: The skull protects the brain.
What is the first verb?
Protects
What protects? Who protects?
The skull
Therefore the skull is the subject of the sentence.
This script helped us focus and find the subject.
When we moved on to the subject as a pronoun, we struggled with this so we had a practical lesson where we could form a sentence that made sense then identify the verb and who or what did that action. This helped us understand more and this was evident when children went back to purple pen their exit ticket from the previous lesson and got it correct.
In grammar, we continued to explore irregular verbs and how these change in the past tense. These are words that children will need to learn so we verbally practiced using my turn your turn.
During the last week of half term, Crew Hamill have worked hard to identify the subject of a sentence. The subject is who or what is doing the action within the sentence. To help us do this, we followed a script in which we identified the first verb (action word) and then asked ourselves who or what did that action. To consolidate this learning, we were given jumbled up sentences. Our first job was to structure our sentences. We knew they began with a capital letter and ended with a full stop so these were the first cards we placed. Then we organised the rest of the words until we had a fully independent clause that made sense. Once we’d done this, we identified the verb and subject.
Our final lesson on verbs began with a game of charades! We circled up, one person chose a verb card and then they had to act out their verb for the rest of the crew to guess. We had a giggle when Jenson started dancing! Following this, we looked at irregular verbs in the past tense and identified what happened when these formed verb phrases. We then had to identify which verb phrases had been formed correctly and correct any which had the past tense verb wrong.
