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

Another term, more doctors...

ir-01

ir-01,

We've been working with the 'Doctor, doctor' material again. This time round, pupils composed their dialogues and turned them into comic strips either in the traditional pencil-and-paper way, or with Comic Life and our collection of puppet photos. I'm pleased to report that this year's stories are as gruesome as ever...

Medical Mice

Another bit of video, this time from Year 5 working with our new puppet theatre (it's an old wooden clothes-horse with felt stapled over it). Pupils used the 'Doctor! Doctor!' exercise from the Minimus workbook to write little Latin dialogues, which they acted out with the help of our mouse puppets.

We have a set of three - doctor (with tiny scalpel and pill sewn on his paws), patient (optional bandage and spots) and nurse. They started life as a set of soft toys from Ikea, but were..converted...for use as finger puppets. Best not to think about it too hard.

We found that it was impossible to record video and audio at the same time, as the puppet handlers' voices were muffled by the felt screen, so we recorded the dialogue first, then played it back as a guide for the action.

Wasp and Cow

Year 7 wrote little puppet plays to explain the use of the six cases. Here's a collaborative effort, with two of our favourite puppets (picked from an ever-growing collection).