Month: August 2020

Since Friday we have been foraging for berries and rose hips for our jam and jelly making. An old lady who is my friend in the village has an apple tree and a beautiful garden. She gave me some apples from her tree and also gave me some tomatoes today because I took her some of our bramble jam and our rose hip jelly. We also made some granny loaves to go with the jam and a berry crumble so we did not waste any of our ingredients. I made two of the labels for the rose hip jelly, in the middle is Caspian’s label. Mine say happy jelly and star jelly.

Today I started reading about Plop who is a baby owl and he is afraid of the dark. I read up to page 43. I had fun because it is a really nice book. Plop lives with his mummy and daddy and I think that is really cute.

Two of my cats had to be collected by the vet lady today and are having operations tomorrow. I am missing them a lot.

I wrote to three of my friends today, they were Owen, Annelise and Mena. I am writing more tomorrow.

Be happy, have fun and smile every day.

Lots of love from Tanith xxx

 

Hi all, Caspian is back!

It has been a very busy few days, from maths, to science, to art history, to foraging, to jam making. Phew, I am exhausted!

We have been out twice foraging for berries. It was great to see Miss Dale and some of our friends on our first outing to gather berries for bramble jelly.  Mum found a recipe online to make bramble jelly and one of our friends in the village gave us a load of cooking apples from her tree as she had too many so we had the base for our first batch of jam. Mum helped make it as it got very very hot but Tanith and I helped with prepping the fruit, sterilising the jars, stirring the jam, checking for the wrinkle (the setting point of the lava) and writing the labels. As you can see, the jam is infected with the piggy virus! (Roblox game characters, made by Minitoon, very fun.) Our second foraging at the weekend was for rosehips, sloe berries, hedge berries (yellow but look like raspberries) and damsons. The berries have been put aside for crumbles, pies and more jam but we made the rosehip jelly last night. We are going to have a go at nettle jelly next but I’m going to let Mark, Tanith and Mum pick the nettles while I shout orders!

On Friday, I wrote a Doctor Who story for literacy. Mum got me to choose a location, five Doctor Who references and two things to do with the Mesolithic. I will post my story later.

I also did some research on Leonardo da Vinci (not the mutant ninja turtle). I found out the following:

1. He invented flying machines.
2. He painted the Mona Lisa.
3. He painted the Last Supper of Christ.
4. He painted Vitruvian Man.
5. Da Vinci’s architectural genius is used to this day by other artists and engineers, such as the Vebjorn Sands Da Vinci Project in Norway.
6. His hobbies were painting, sculpting and engineering.
7. His dad was a lawyer and a landlord.
8. His mother was a peasant.
9. He was also a scientist and a geologist.
10. He was illegitimate.
11. His surname is also the name of the town he was raised in.
12. He didn’t receive any formal education.
13. He could play the lyre.
14. He had ten years of art training as an adult.
15. He was ambidextrous so could right and left handed.

Today, I have read up to chapter 22 of Wolf Brother. At the part where Torak tried to kill Wolf for food, I had to skip the few sentences as I cannot bear to think of dead wolves, they are my favourite beast. I also like the fact Wolf calls Torak ‘Tall Tailess’. I have written three letters today. I will be writing some every day. It was really great getting all the letters from everyone.

That’s all folks!!

(The picture below is Vitruvian Man by Da Vinci.)

Hello,

I couldn’t do my blog yesterday so this one is a long one.

I learned about animal teeth yesterday and wrote down some facts.

Crocodiles have a special kind of bird which cleans their teeth.

Titan fish have very strong teeth.

Snails have a lot of very little teeth.

Everyone has to brush their teeth to stop them rotting.

You should clean your teeth for at least two minutes. Caspian doesn’t do this but I do.

Snails grind their food.

Blue whales don’t have any teeth.

I practiced my joined up writing again as I wrote a page from one of my train story books. I also did a lot of reading as mummy says it will help me spell.

Today I drew a message for my Wolfox clan.

It says today is a sunny day so we can go fishing and wash in the water. Next we will collect hedgeberries on our tree bark tray. Then we will hunt a deer and go home to cook all our food. When we have had a warm by the fire we can go to bed on our wool beds.

We also went on a nature walk today to collect some things for our nature art. I hope you like my picture. My picture is flower earth and it smells very nice because of the lavender I found on the edge of one of the fields.  I think it is magical becomes sometimes flowers are like fairies and it makes me feel in my imagination that I am a flower living in a fairy world and everyone is friends. All the flowers around us are alive and help us be happy. I hope you like it and think it is magical too.

I am going to make some chocolate smartie cookies with mummy now and maybe some gingerbread men as she got me some special things to make them with.

Byeee love from Tanith xxx

Hi all, Caspian is back!

We had a power cut last night so this post covers the last two days.
Yesterday, after my every day maths and English lessons, I learnt all bout teeth and my facts are as follows.

1. Some people say if you have large canines, you are carnivorous.

2. Most people have their wisdom teeth removed.

3. 35% of people don’t get their wisdom teeth.

4. Wisdom teeth produce stem cells.

5. In the 18th Century, the toothbrush was an actual stick with bristles attached to it.

6. Issac Newton’s tooth was sold for £35,000.00.

7. The enamel is harder than bone.

8. The way you chew depends on if you are a leftie or a rightie.

9. Women smile 62x a day.

10. Men only smile 8x times a day.

11. Issac Newton’s tooth was set on a ring.

12. In World War Two, Nazi’s removed gold teeth from the Jews.

13. Evolved from Prehistoric birds, crocodile birds get their meals from a crocodile’s leftovers. The birds are too quick to get snapped up by the crocodiles.

14. The best fact of all, snails have 25,000 teeth!!!!!!!

Today, I wrote a message for my clansfolk, using my Wolfox symbolic language.

Then we went on a walk to collect some natural finds so we could create some nature art. It was really good to get some fresh air and we waved at some of our friends who were in the next field.

To create my piece of natural art, I used ivy leaves, harebells, sticks, barley seeds, forget me not and a piece of diorite (a white/black stone, found in large or small numbers). My picture portrays the life around planet Earth. The core of the Earth is the diorite, the ivy forms the Earth’s crust, and all the offshoots form the natural landscape on a global scale.

That’s all folks!

Today the clans were continuing to develop their shelters and dens. You could take a walk up to school in the evening and see what you think.

We are hoping that it is not windy tonight or tomorrow!!

We were also foraging for brambles with Mrs Queen and hope to make jam with them. Some clans have used berries to paint their clan flag.

Today some pupils created journey strings during a walk. On the walk you attach different natural finds to your string. Some have a scent, some have medicinal qualities (Dock Leaf) some have colour and could be used as a dye. Some finds can be eaten.

The string is like a map of the journey you took. You can pass it to a clan member and they can try to retrace your steps using your finds as clues.

Mrs Nyondo made two excellent journey strings – they are now hanging in a clan shelter.

Mrs Madden and Nathan are collecting nettles – Mrs Madden is going to show us how to make nettle string. Mrs Madden is also showing pupils how to whittle.

You guys got a very sunny day for your trip to the 12 Apostles – lucky!!

Hope this finds you safe and well.

Miss Dale

Hello

I did some work about foraging in the woods today. I pretended to be a person from the Mesolithic and thought about all the things I could find to eat or use. I also drew a picture of all the things I could use like moss, bark, hedgeberries, elderberries, crab apples, toadstools, acorns and leaves.

I also did my maths. The 11xtable is tricky. I read my Thomas book about Emily to mummy and practiced sounded out some hard words. I answered some questions about the story and to practice my curly writing I wrote out a page from my book. Mummy thought Caspian had written it because it was very neat.

Byeee, see you soon. xxx

Hi all, Caspian is back!

Yesterday, we visited the Neolithic (new stone tool age) standing stones in Holywood – The Twelve Apostles. They are on farmland but have never been moved as they were originally placed in the sacred wood. The ten stones (two are missing) are configured in a circle. They might be under a star constellation or in the shape of the god of the people who put them there. The people were probably very sophisticated as the stones were found, moved and arranged. There could be graves or good luck charms buried underneath the stones. One of the stones is carved underneath. This was originally a side until it fell. Carving shows the people cared about these stones. Erosion has removed and cracked the stones down. There is also quartz in the stones. They are home to a species of spider that camouflages itself to hide on the stones.  Mum made us some garlic cheesy bread to munch on while we looked at the stones.

Today I did some maths and found some interesting w words in the dictionary. I also researched foraging and thought about other uses of the supplies the Mesolithic (middle tool age) people found. For example:

Berries: paint and dye

Mushrooms: medicine

Leaves: bandage

Acorns: animal food (in Mesolithic Germany, pigs were domesticated.)

Bark: Plates and paint pallets

Moss: cushioning to sleep on or under a leaf bandage to help a graze heal.

That’s it for today!

Hello,

We went to the stone circle today as it was dry and sunny.  It is only a 5 minute walk from our house. The stones are very old and very special. They have been worn down by the weather so arent as big as they once were. There is lots of nature growing on them and a spider was hiding on one of them. He was the same colour as the stone so birds couldn’t see him and eat him. The stones have quartz in them.

Love from Tanith xxx 🕷

I have drawn my clan language and my shield today. We are the Wolfox clan because we love wolves and foxes. I watched a programme about the mesolithic and the man said red deer lived near the people so the people hunted them for food and skin.

 Love from Tanith xxx

 

Hi all, Caspian is back!

We were supposed to visit the Twelve Apostles today but the weather has been so wet and windy that the field is a quagmire. Mum says we will visit at the weekend instead.

So we stayed indoors and finished our clan language and emblem. We tried to think about things that would be relevant to the mesolithic people so I didn’t do a symbol for xbox! Mum did some work with us and she told us about how things were painted, where and why. She helped us think about the sorts of language used at the time. Then we watched a couple of documentaries about hunter-gatherers and cave painting.

Enjoy!