Visit 1 Activity 3
Watching The Bewitched Forest introductory video clip (whole class and pairs)
Context
11:10 – 11:30
Children remain sitting in pairs, at tables, in rows, facing the teacher and IWB, with their Chromebook and writing resources, for making notes. The children have been working for over two hours, with a 20-minute break. The children will watch a videoclip from The Bewitched Forest interactive resource and make notes about the forest
Key activities
- Class watch the resource’s introductory video clip together
- Children rewatch the clip and talk together and make notes about what they have seen
- Children rewatch the clip in pairs
- Children make notes about what they have seen
- To familiarise themselves with the fantasy genre by exploring the setting and characters
- To develop a rich vocabulary (focus on adjectives) to describe a character’s qualities
- To write a summary of what they will be learning about
- Interactive White Board
- Chromebooks (one per child)
- Introductory video clip: The Bewitched Forest – Inspire Literacy
- Use of introductory video as a ‘hook’
- Collaborative guided watching
- To watch as class
- To promote discussion of observations
- To raise questions (model questioning)
- Paired watching
- Rewatch in pairs and talking
- Watch and pause to discuss
- Recording observations (on scrap paper)
- Developing understanding about genre and story type
- Multimodal comprehension/ visual literacy using video
- Text-centred discussion
- Focused watching (pausing/ replaying/ rewatching) as part of the reading/meaning-making process
- Note-taking
- Digital resource navigation
- Did the introductory video and collaborative watching/ discussion promote sustained engagement
- Has the video helped children to engage with the narrative genre in particular – and developed excitement for writing in this genre?
Lesson Commentary
Introduction
Class watch the resource’s introductory video clip together
The teacher explains that the next activity is to watch the resource’s introductory video. This explains what the children are being asked to do: to explore the bewitched the forest; choose a creature from the forest; meet the wizard of the forest… to complete the story of the forest.
- This preliminary activity is integral to the immersion in the world of the story, that children will inhabit as story writers, later
- The children needed to watch the resource twice (playing their way into the activity)
- The noise levels are high but industrious. Noise and excited talk are part of this activity.
- Watching and listening is active and interactive. Talk is part of digital resource watching
- The teacher is present but does not need to direct. Children engage easily.
- The children are animated and engaged with writing words for what they can see. They are challenged positively and excited by the challenge.
- The children are engaged even though they are watching as a whole class, and at a distance from the IWB
- The children are sustained in their engagement after two hours of work
- Children need time to become immersed in the digital resource’s storyworld
- Children need time to watch and rewatch to allow focus to build
- Talk is an active part of the watching and listening/ meaning-making experience
- The classroom will be noisy
- The teacher may feel less directive than usual
- To plan for small tasks that can be engaged in sequentially
- That watching and meaning making can be a staged process when using digital resources