Inspired by: Good Knight, Sleep Tight - Week 6

In an engaging language lesson inspired by David Melling's "Good Knight, Sleep Tight," students explore the use of apostrophes to indicate omitted letters in contractions. The activity begins with a comparison of two sentences: "Fortunately, he did not fall" and "Fortunately he didn't fall." Students are encouraged to identify similarities and differences, leading to a discussion about the contraction "didn't," where the apostrophe replaces the missing 'o' in "not." Through examples like "The horse could not/couldn't climb the tree," learners generate rules for using apostrophes for omission and consider whether the omitted letter is always an 'o'.

The lesson also delves into literary devices with "Galloping Galore," where students examine the use of repetition in storytelling. They ponder why the Knight 'galloped and galloped and galloped' and look for additional instances of repetition in the text, such as "In the dark, dark wood," discussing the various purposes this technique can serve. Another activity, "Night Night Knight," focuses on proofreading. Students are tasked with identifying and correcting errors in a letter written by the King, which contains mistakes in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Lastly, "Perfectly Peaceful" teaches adjective formation using suffixes like –ful and –less. The Knight gives out whimsically named awards to his animal helpers and his valiant horse, and students are invited to design and write these awards, reinforcing their understanding of adjective formation and creative writing.