Minimus tops the charts!

Minimus is at the top of Amazon's bestsellers list, in the Ancient History category!

It's great news, especially in the week that Minimus In Practice goes on sale. It's our cross-curricular resource book for teachers, and it features, among other things, 150 new mouse drawings...

Find out more here

Pius saves the camp!

This year, my Year 5 class put together a photo story based on their work with Minimus. Soldiers, Britons and doctors all appear - and the famous Moreton Hall horse! We had one Roman helmet (which we got with supermarket vouchers), one red t-shirt and a couple of swords. The chariot is made of two broom handles, a curved piece of cardboard for the body and two cardboard wheels. The yoke pole was held by the back end of the horse, and the charioteers were on the ground. We borrowed a saw, a sponge and two red-painted aprons from the Art room. I put the pictures together with ComicLife, and a little bit of Photoshopping.

Conjugating!

Year 5 have been learning to conjugate verbs - Chapter 3 of Minimus. Here are some of their drawings to illustrate the verb "smile"

Subject & Object

We've been learning about subject and object endings (Chapter 11)...

rana vespam consumit

vespa ranam consumit

 crocodilus porcum consumit

porcus crocodilum consumit

We'll be having a go at the Sentence Generator next, to practise with adjectives as well. It only works on Internet Explorer, infuriatingly. One of these days, I'll work out why, and fix it!

The Wooden Horse

Here's a fabulous illustrated version of the Wooden Horse story, by a Year 5 pupil

Vindolanda letters

Year 5 have been learning about the Vindolanda letters, and writing their own, based on the Minimus worksheets. The children wrote letters home from soldiers stationed at the fort, and we added their text to a template of a wooden writing tablet.I found a wonderful font called Cursiva Romana Antiqua for the display versions, which is based on the handwriting from the real letters. We enjoyed trying to decipher the strange 'p','r' and 'b'.

milites! audite!

My Year V are finishing Chapter 7 of Minimus, and they are very taken with giving orders. We took advantage of the fine weather to practice a spot of parade drill, with the help of some bamboo canes and a legionary helmet earned with supermarket vouchers. (Irritatingly, the crest won't fit across the helmet, so the centurion wasn't quite correctly outfitted)





tacete!



milites! audite!



pila portate!



pila parate!



pila iacite!

Stop-Motion Latin

Months after acquiring the playmobil amphitheatre ('for school, of course') I've finally finished stringing together year 5's little animations. This set features soldiers following orders, and is based on Minimus Chapter 7.
The children photographed the playmobil figures with a digital still camera, then recorded the sound clips using the computer's basic sound recorder and a simple microphone. The animations were assembled with Movie Maker.
See the animation here.

Doctor comics part 2

More doctor comics