What it is. Some verbs show action and some only say that something IS.
Why our test works. Being verbs feel like nothing is happening, so children skip them and then cannot find the verb in half of all sentences. Naming the two kinds is what makes *She is tall* have a verb — and MCT makes the point in a story, which is why it lands.
Leans on. Lesson 11.
Watch for. This is the single hardest idea in Level 1 grammar. Expect it to need saying again.
Read and use Mud Thinks about Doing and Being from Sentence Island, pp.57–63. The worked example is the one you build on the board: Teacher reads the key passage of Mud Thinks about Doing and Being aloud with the book open The class reads Writing Book 4, p.57 — 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. Before anything new, sixty seconds of retrieval on U6 set 2: ask, take the answers from boards rather than hands so you see all thirty, and do not re-teach — note who has lost it and carry on.
Then you do one yourself, building it on the board and leaving it up: Teacher reads the key passage of Mud Thinks about Doing and Being 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 Thinks about Doing and Being 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 57 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 Thinks about Doing and Being to three sentences of your own, double-spaced.
You close on the exit direction — Read out one sentence that uses Mud Thinks about Doing and Being. — taken from every child before anyone stands, and then the line you want them to still have tomorrow: Doing, or being — a verb does one or the other.
This is the single hardest idea in Level 1 grammar. Expect it to need saying again.