What it is. Every sentence names something and then says something about it.
Why our test works. Sentence Island teaches the sentence as a thing with parts, and grammar is teaching subject and predicate the same year in Grammar Island. Asking both halves of the question at once is what joins the two — the child meets the same idea twice in one week from two directions.
Leans on. Grammar's own subject work this year.
Watch for. Do not out-run grammar. If grammar has not reached subject yet, say 'who it is about'.
Read and use Mud's Two Sides from Sentence Island, pp.7–13. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher reads the key passage of Mud's Two Sides aloud with the book open and models the m The class reads Writing Book 4, p.50 — our own page, so a child who was absent can still get the lesson.
You open by saying where this sits — what it follows and what it is part of — in one sentence, and then you give them the reason it matters, in your own words, for about ten seconds.
Then you do one yourself, building it on the board and leaving it up: Teacher reads the key passage of Mud's Two Sides aloud with the book open and models the move it teaches on one sentence. The board copy is what they look back at when they stall, so it stays there for the whole lesson.
The We-do is the main whiteboard moment of the lesson — short answers, boards up on your signal, every child visible at once. Class applies the move from Mud's Two Sides to two sentences together, checking against the book's own example. If the answer is a whole sentence rather than a word, take it on their notebooks instead, because a sentence written on a whiteboard is written once and destroyed.
They open Writing Book 4 to page 50 and read it with you. Stop at the worked example and let them look at it.
Exit directions in full, standing still, before anyone moves. Then they work alone: In your notebook: apply Mud's Two Sides to three sentences of your own, double-spaced.
You close on the exit direction — Read out one sentence that uses Mud's Two Sides. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: A sentence has two sides: who, and what about them.
Do not out-run grammar. If grammar has not reached subject yet, say 'who it is about'.