Anglo-Saxons

The

Cross-curricular Ideas

Look at pictures of the Bayeux Tapestry. It tells the story of the last Anglo-Saxon battle against the Normans in 1066. Look out for King Harold with the arrow in his eye and study the clothes that are worn. Using fabric, make a collage copying part of the tapestry.

Art, Design & Technology

Music

Look at the painting,

King Alfred Burning the Cakes painted in

1806 by Sir David Wilkie. Make an

illustration from the scene that you are

performing in your assembly to show all the

characters, including Alfred

with the cakes.

Investigate some of the Anglo-Saxon musical

instruments such as horns, harps, rebec (type of violin), trumpet, bone fl ute, lyre etc.

Can any of these types of instruments be easily made? Then divide into groups and using a

variety of instruments (including the voice) create your own music poem.

Listen to the Beowulf instrumental sections from the Assembly and choose appropriate

percussion instruments to accompany each of the four instrumental tracks

(see p15 for percussion ideas). Use these in your presentation.

Buy the largest

copper washers you can fi nd.

Put your copper shape on to a strong

block and tap it with a small hammer to

give it an interesting textured surface.

Very soon you will realize how clever the

Anglo-Saxon metal workers were!

Polish your fi nished piece and see how

you can turn it into a piece of jewellery.

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Cross-curricular Ideas

Read Stories of Beowulf Told to

Children by H. E. Marshall

or Beowulf

by Michael Morpurgo.

Make a class list of adjectives, verbs

and adverbs to describe a scary dragon. Create a really good descriptive

sentence using words from the list, e.g. ‘Drools of sickening, slimy saliva splattered on to my

shield when the fearsome monster opened his cavernous mouth and gave a deafening roar.’

Draw the outline of a huge dragon and get everyone to write their sentences in

the dragon with coloured pens.

English

Create an archaeological dig

using a sensory station with sand and buried

items, or laminated photos of Anglo-Saxon

artefacts such as shields, swords, coins, pottery etc.

Write down the descriptions of your discoveries in

an archaeological report.

History Make bread without using yeast. Shape it into simple ‘cakes’ and bake – mind they don’t burn! Try eating them with honey. The Anglo-Saxons kept bees and loved honey because they didn’t have sugar. Check out their beehives.

Food Technology

Anglo-Saxons

TheAnglo-Saxons spoke

Old English, which is a very different

language to modern English. Many of the words they spoke

are unrecognizable, but some have a very strong connection to

their modern equivalents. Ask the children if they can work out

the following: faeder (father); modor (mother); sunu (son);

dohtor (daughter); mann (man); hus (house); biscop

(bishop); bat (boat); sunne (sun); hors (horse); bearn (child).

Investigate the extra letters/sounds

that the Anglo-Saxons used to

have in Old English.

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