To describe a character

Key Stage 1

English

Jack and the Beanstalk: characters, mood, problems

﻿Hello and welcome, my name is Mr. Santhanam, and this is lesson three of 10 from our Jack and the Beanstalk unit. In today's lesson, we are going to be learning how to describe a character. Now, in the last lesson, I asked you to choose three adjectives that you might use to describe the giant from our story. We don't hear very much about her the story. So we really have to use our own imaginations. And I promised I would share with you the three words that I would use to describe her. Are you ready? Now I don't know about you, but I found this really, really difficult because when we hear that creaking door open and the giant steps into the castle, when Jack is hiding in the cupboard 'cause he's so scared, there's no character description, we don't find out what the giant looks like. We don't find out about what her personality is like or how she behaves. So we really, really have to think about this ourselves. So I thought long and hard about what vocabulary I would use to pick out and describe what she's like. And this is what I came up with. Towering, I know that she is a really, really tall lady because she is a giant. I know that she lives in a giant castle too. So when she's running, after Jack at the end of the story, I know that she must be towering above him. Mysterious, we never really get to know what she's like. She doesn't ever talk to Jack. They don't have a conversation. We don't really get to hear much about her story. All we know is that she stole Jack's father's treasure long ago and that she wants it back when Jack steals it. So there's lots of mystery surrounding her. So I said that she was mysterious. Not only is she mysterious, but I thought she was quite ominous. It's almost like she's a faceless character. We don't really get to find out very much about her. So I said she was ominous, which means a bit creepy, a bit eerie, a little bit evil, but also mysterious. Amazing, amazing, now that we've had a chance to think about some of the vocabulary that we might use to describe the giant, it's time for us to get ready. In this lesson, you are going to need your paper. You're going to need a pencil and you will need your brilliant brain. Pause the video now while you go and get those things. Amazing, I can tell you already ready to start. So let's get started. In today's lesson, we are going to be doing our spelling first of all, we're then going to recap our story map. We are going to do a hot seating activity, and finally, we'll do our wanted poster activity. So this is where you might want to get out some of your colouring pencils and you might want to get really creative and artistic with this. First it's time for our spellings. This week, we've been looking at ve grapheme. We often see the ve grapheme at the end of words, and they make the ve sound. Let's have a look at some of the words where we see the ve grapheme. I love my mom. I've lost my glove. Give that back. I live in London. We do not shove each other. My favourite bird is a dove. How have you been doing with learning your spellings this week? Do you think you might know these ones? I know that I can look at a word, say it in a sentence so that it makes sense to me, write the word, cover it and then check the spelling. Why not give that a go now? And you can give yourself a little spelling test. Write all them down now and pause your video. Amazing, how did you do with your spellings? I can tell that in no time at all, they're going to be locked in your brain and they will never, ever leave. Okay, it's now time for us to review our story map. I know that we're really focusing on problems that matter in this unit. So we're really thinking about what the main problem is in Jack and the Beanstalk. What do you think the main problem is? Ah, I think I agree with you. I think the main problem is that the giant has stolen all of Jack's treasure and that is not fair. So he wants to get it back. So today we're really going to be focusing on the giant character and why she has such a problem, and how Jack solves it. Let's compare some of these stories. What do you think the problem is in these stories? In The Three Little Pigs, they all build their own houses, but what happens? That's right, the big, bad wolf comes and knocks them all down or blows them all down. In Goldilocks, what's the problem? Goldilocks is happy making herself at home, but, that's right, the three bears come back and they chase her out of there. In Little Red Riding Hood, she is trying to get to her grandma's house, but the big, bad wolf comes along and he tries to gobble her up. Now in each of these stories, there is a mean and evil character and they are known as the villain. So we are really going to be focusing on that villain character today. Okay, I'm having a look at my Jack and the Beanstalk story map now, and I can see, there is kind of a problem here in the beginning of the story when Jack doesn't have any money. And we realise later on, that is because of the giant. The giant has stolen all of Jack's treasure and he needs to get it back, but she is guarding the treasure in her castle. So that is what we're really going to be focusing on today. Why is the giant such a problem? Okay, we're now going to have a go at doing one of my favourite activities ever. This is when we get to really use our voices and our body language and our expression to really, really think about characters and what makes characters so unique. It's called hot seating. I got a fright then, 'cause the mean, evil giant lady was on the page. It's just a picture though, don't worry. We are going to hot seat Jack from the story. We didn't hear very much about the giant from the story. And Jack knows more than we do. So we need to come up with some questions to ask Jack. What questions could we ask Jack about the giant? Pause your video now while you think of some questions to ask Jack. Amazing, I heard some children came up with the questions, how do you feel about the giant? Okay, so now I'm going to pretend to be Jack. Remember, if you want to play this another time, you can have one person pretend to be Jack and one person can be the interviewer. You can even use a pretend microphone to pretend that you're on a talk show. Now, I'm going to pretend to be Jack and you are going to ask me the question down below. Are you ready? How do you feel about the giant? Well the giant was very, very terrifying because she was towering, mysterious and ominous. She seems so aggressive and angry all the time. And she would stomp around and smash her fist on the table. When she used to run after me, I used to get really, really, really worried. She seemed hungry for my blood and I knew that she could get aggressive and violent if she wanted to. Next question. Why do you feel that way? Well, I also wasn't very happy with the giant because I know that she took my dad's treasure and that is not fair. She has done a bad thing and I'm very, very cross with her. So I think the only way I can get my treasure back is if I steal it back, she is a thief and she killed my father with her brute strength. So I do not like her at all. I want to make sure that me and my mom have enough money to eat. So I am doing the best I can to make sure I protect my mom from this horrible, horrible, giant. Next question. What was she like? Well, even though I was very cross with her because she was such a criminal, I was very intimidated by her and she did threaten me in a little bit. She was quite big, so I had to run away from her. And when she came into the castle, I had to hide from her. So I must admit, I was very scared of her, it's true. Now that you've seen me pretend to be Jack and describe the giant, why not give it a go yourself? You could do this with a friend, your parent or carer or a teacher. Here are some questions to help you generate some descriptions of the giant. How did she move? What verbs can we use to describe how she moved? Did she skip, did she run, did she jump? How does she move? You could also ask, what did she look like? We don't really get a description of what she looks like and her appearance, so this is up to you. And you could also ask, how would you describe what she has done? She's done some not very nice things before hasn't she? So how would you describe those things? Remember, the things that we want to collect are what actions does she do? Verbs, we're going to use the verb to describe that. What does she look like? We can use an expanded noun phrase. So maybe two adjectives, the something, something giant. And what is her behaviour like? How does she act? Remember these can be adverbs, which usually end in LY. Maybe she moves frighteningly. Maybe she moves quickly, maybe she moves terrifyingly. What adjectives did you hear Jack using to describe the giant and what adjectives did you come up with yourself? Pause the video now to complete your task. You just need to write them down so that when we get to do our wanted poster, you have loads of really great ideas to use. Okay, now it's time to do a wanted poster. On your page, you're going to make a poster. And in the middle of your page, you're going to draw a picture of the giant lady. Then you're going to write four sentences. The first sentence is going to say, the giant is, so you're going to use three adjectives to describe the giant. The next sentence you're going to write is, she acts like, what does she act like? You could use an adverb here. You could use another noun here, what is she like? You might say she is a criminal or she is a, whatever you think is most appropriate. She has, this is where we're going to describe one of her features. How would you describe her nose? How would you describe her hands? How would you describe her face? How could we describe her appearance? She is known for, what is she known for? What has she done that so bad? Again, the three things we're really focusing on are verbs, which are action words doing words. How does she move her body? Adjectives, what is she like, how can we describe her? And adverbs, how is she doing these things? Remember, these words usually end in LY. Don't forget to colour in your picture and make it super, duper amazing. But remember your focus is on writing four sentences to really describe the character. You can make her into whatever kind of giant you want. It's totally up to you. Remember, the giant is the biggest problem in this story. Try to think about how unfair it is what she has done to Jack and his family. And that might really help you to be able to describe her. What words do you know that we can use to really describe someone as evil as her? I would love to see your wanted posters. So please do send them in to Oak National. If you'd like to please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnWithOak. I can't wait to see you next time, bye-bye.

To describe a character

To describe a character

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UnitEnglish / Jack and the Beanstalk: characters, mood, problems

English