Beowulf: Part 3

The death-dragon laying atop the hoard of golden treasure

Soon after Beowulf killed the sea hag, his king died. After fifty years of Beowulf being king, a slave finds a dragon’s hoard and steals a golden cup. Knowing that his treasure has been stolen, the dragon wakes up and burns the Geat kingdom. After having a fire-proof shield made, Beowulf goes to find the … Read more

Carsington Water

Today, we embarked on our longest walk to date: 8.5 miles around Carsington Water. Starting at the visitor centre, we made our way across the dam. At the other end, we found a huge stone with a plaque containing lots of facts about the reservoir. A little further on, there was a memorial for the … Read more

Formal and Informal Letters

This piece of work is a formal letter from John walker to Mr and Mrs Jackson, who are characters from Swallowdale, about a shipwreck. Swallowdale,High Moor,Rio,H48 1RZ. 7th July 1940 Dear Mr and Mrs Jackson, I am writing to apologise and explain about the shipwreck of Swallow. The rest of the Swallows and I were … Read more

Sundials

A photo of me measuring the length of the shadow.

Method: First, I put a stick in the ground in a sunny area. When it was sunny, I drew a line using chalk over the shadow of the stick and put the time at the top. Then, I measured the chalk line in cm. Results: Conclusion: The shadow was 38.5 cm long at 11:19. In … Read more

Creative Writing With Matilda

A photo of the Trunchbull from the book, Matilda.

During our English lessons, we worked through the Matilda workbook, which taught me about dialogue, reported speech, inner speech, describing voices and showing how a character feels using speech. This piece of work is a conversation using what I’ve learnt from the book. The dialogue is about planning a trick to play on the Trunchbull: … Read more

Clumber Lake

Today, we walked the five miles around Clumber Lake. The lake was created by damming the River Poulter in 1772 and took fifteen years to complete. The overflow runs over the dam and back into the river course. Despite the torrent of water, the ducks seemed to like the dam, too! On the other side … Read more

Beowulf: Part 2

The thanes are sleeping. Grendel’s mother, who’s a sea hag, kills Ashhere. All of the thanes wake up. The sea hag escapes carrying her kill and Grendel’s arm. Hrothgar, the king of Denmark, asks Beowulf, a daring prince, to kill the sea hag. Beowulf goes to find the sea hag. He sees Ashhere’s head by … Read more

Wild Flowers

With an abundance of wild flowers about at the moment, we decided to go for a walk armed with our pocket guides. Here are some of our discoveries: Yellow irises Tall melilot Common bird’s-foot-trefoil (commonly known as ‘eggs and bacon’) Bladder campion Oxeye daisy Clover Knapweed Tufted vetch Dog-rose And a blue-headed, red-hump-backed magpie!

The Badgers are Back!

A working trip to the woods today also uncovered some exciting new discoveries. Early summer is always a busy time at the woods. With bramble and bracken going through a huge growth spurt, the paths were more than ready for clearing. While Dad took care of the brush-cutting, we raked the campsite and gave the … Read more

Beowulf: Part One

We started reading Beowulf because it was mentioned in the Saxon book I read. The King of Demark, Hrothgar, gets a great hall built where people can eat. In the hall people listen to a story about how God created Earth. Outside the hall Grendel, a monster, listens to the story. Because the story is … Read more