This video sequence contains short extract from two lessons.

The first is a P.2 PE lesson using hoops. As a warm-up activity for the lesson, the teacher organizes a game where pupils pretend to be mice or rabbits at play, but when the tiger (teacher) appears, they have to find safety in the caves (hoops). She uses this warm-up activity as an imaginative strategy to mentally and physically prepare the children for their lesson, and to lead into the main activity of the lesson which will use hoops for developing body coordination.

The second extract is the beginning of an Art lesson which will result in pupils making their own dinosaurs from clay. The beginning teacher uses a puppet to invoke the pupils' interest in the topic.

(In Unit 6 , Video 6 & 7 , you will be able to see a 10 - 15 minutes extract of these lessons. This may help the facilitator, providing additional information about the lesson.)

Setting the tone of the lesson not only applies to the 'normal' classroom setting. It is also important in specialist classrooms (music, art room, IT, etc) and when lessons are conducted outside the classroom, such as PE.

The setting, however, may make a big difference to the way that the teacher needs to go about establishing the tone, for example, by joining in with the pupils as part of the play.

When watching this video, notice how this PE teacher helps to create the tone by participating in the game, and how the newly qualified Art teacher captured the interest of his pupils by using a puppet.

Consider how the tone of these lessons, set at the beginning, could be maintained throughout the lesson, as it was in the English lesson on the big book (Activity A).