Cedar Class Learning 30th March

Please see the weekly activities post/the corresponding section on the class website for the spelling and arithmetic focus for this week, along with additional tasks which can be completed.

This is a long post, but only because there is an example of the English work in the middle of it.

English: LO: to create story map.

Last week you designed a character for an Arthur-inspired story I told you we would be writing this week. Today, I would like you to start thinking up the plot of your story; a story needs a problem for our character to solve, otherwise it won’t be a very interesting story!

Write these headings in your book, underneath them write down the details of your story:

‘Place’, ‘Good characters’, ‘Evil characters’, ‘Problem’, ‘Solution’.

Here is an example of what this may look like (I will use Arthur and the Golden Rope as my example story):

Place – A small Icelandic town, it has a magical forest nearby which the character explores, there are also strange mountains and old abandoned castles around the town where the character has had adventures before the story.

Good characters – Arthur (the main character), Atrix (the town wisewoman who sends Arthur on his quest), Windweaver (a magical bird who Arthur once helped, she gave him a magical feather and promised to help him if he ever needed saving), Thor (Viking God who Arthur has to go and see to get help).

Evil characters – Fenrir (monstrous wolf who knocks over the fire to destroy the town), Fenrir has lots of evil friends (ogres, evil dragons) who will be in the battle at the end of the story.

Problem – Arthur is out exploring one day and he wakes up Fenrir. Fenrir runs to the town and knocks over the Great Fire of Protection. Without it, the town and all the people will freeze. Everyone became injured when Fenrir came to the town, and someone needs to go and find Thor to get him to relight the fire. Arthur is the only person who isn’t injured, but he is only a small boy.

Solution: Arthur travels to the land of the Viking gods and is given 2 tasks to complete by Thor (capturing the sound of a cat’s footfall, and finding the root of a mountain). He brings these back to Thor. Thor makes a golden rope with which he can capture Fenrir. Arthur and Thor battle Fenrir and his evil friends and capture him. Thor takes Arthur back to the town and relights the fire. The town is saved and everyone likes Arthur.

Once you have written out something like what is above, draw a picture story map of what will happen in what order in your story. Think back to the story map I drew of the story of Thor getting his hammer (where Sif’s hair had been cut off), or the work we did using the mighty write. Draw pictures to show how your story will be written out, but don’t write anything yet. See if you can tell someone a rough idea of your story just by using the pictures you have drawn.

Maths: Last week you looked at adding and subtracting money, using both number lines and column addition/subtraction. Today, can you please revisit this. Create 5 problems for subtracting money, and another 5 for adding money. If you only used actual money to help you last week, see if you can use a number line today. If you only used number lines last week, see if you can use a column method today. Don’t forget to line up your pounds, tens of pence and ones of pence. Also, don’t forget to line up your decimals! If you want to see an example of this, there is a subtraction example using column subtraction on the class website under the 27 MAR 2020 work. Once you have done 5 addition and 5 subtraction questions, which one do you find trickiest? Try and do 2 more questions on the whichever type you found most difficult!

D.T.: LO: to design a burh.
A burh was an Old English fortified settlement (fort) used by Anglo-Saxons to defend themselves against the Vikings. King Alfred the Great was ruler when these forts started to be built across the country. The idea was to have these fort towns close enough together so that they could help each other if they were ever attacked by Vikings. A burh usually had a system of mud walls and ditches around the edges which were held up by wooden or stone walls. This made them a very safe place in the countryside for people to gather and sell their crops, buy food, and come together for company. Today, I would like you to draw a map of a burh of your own. Give the town a name (you could name if after yourself!), and be sure to include everything you think a fort town would need. There aren’t any pictures of burhs, but you can find drawings of what people think they may have looked like on the internet.

Some things to include:

Outer ditches and mud walls,
Wooden or stone walls holding the mud walls up,
A gate (or gates) to allow people to come in and out of the town,
A big townhall where people could gather, eat, and talk to the town leaders,
A marketplace for people to buy and sell goods,
A stable,
A market for buying and selling livestock,
Watch towers (for guards to stand on at night and keep an eye out for Viking invaders).