Battle of the Bands Results 23.3.20
This week’s results:
Ebony 16,424 v Holly 13,173
Bonsai 7,267 v Monkey Puzzle 370
Redwood 2020 v Fir 218
Oak 11,504 v Cherry 4223
Apple 222 v Palm 87
Congratulations to the winning bands. A new battle will start on 14th April so get practising!
All week, classes in each year group have been battling each other on Times Tables Rockstars to win this week’s Battle of the Bands. Children score points for every correct answer they give during the week.
In Yr 2 Apple Class are the champions scoring 222 to Palm Class’s 87
In Yr Oak Class were victorious with 11,504 against Cherry Class with 4,223
In Yr 4 Redwood won with 2,020 to Fir’s 318
In Yr 5 Bonsai are the champions with 7,267 to Monkey Puzzle’s 370
And finally, Yr 6 champions are Ebony with 16,424 to Holly’s 13,173
The competition starts again on Monday morning at 8:50am and will continue until 3:15pm on Friday. Don’t forget to log in to your account and do your bit. Next week’s Battle of the Bands results will be posted on Friday.
| Year 3 Home Learning – Friday 13th March 2020
(All learning to be handed in Wednesday 25th March 2020) |
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| Reading
Please encourage your child to read for at least 15 minutes at least five times per week. Please record what you have read in your reading record. |
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| Spellings
Like reading, Spelling is very important for your writing. Spellodrome will have targeted spelling lists each week linking to the spelling focus in class. Challenge yourself and see how many points you can earn! |
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| Home Learning Menu
Over the next 2 weeks you must complete an activity/series of activities that total at least 15 points. How you choose to do so is up to you! For example, you may choose to do one fifteen and a five-point activity or you could do two ten points; you could also choose to do four five-point activities – it is completely your choice! Have a look at the activity menu below. |
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| 15 points | 10 points | 5 points |
| Music
Listen to these 5 songs: Holding Out for a Hero We Don’t Need Another Hero Hero Wind Beneath My Wings I Can Be Your Hero Review the songs – Rank them 1 to 5 – 1 being your favourite. What sounds can you hear? Think about tempo(speed), dynamics(loudness), timbre(sound), Pitch (high and low) and duration(length) Listen to the lyrics (words) how do you know they are about heroes? What does the hero do?
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History
Historical Heroes – below is a list of historical heroes or you can think of one yourself. Can you research the hero and create and information piece about why they were a hero. Don’t forget to explain when and where they lived and what they did that made them a hero?
Florence Nightingale Ghandi Amelia Earhart Rosa Parks Mother Teresa Mary Seacole Martin Luther King Boudicca William Wilberforce Neil Armstrong
Or any one else from history as long as you can explain why they are a hero! |
5 points for each act.
PSHE ‘Paying it forward’ – Can you do a good deed for someone. It could be anything that is kind, helpful or thoughtful to someone else. It could be as simple as picking up something that someone else has dropped and returning it to them or something big raising money for charity! Write about it, photograph it, video it! Whatever you can think of to show how you are spreading kindness in the world!
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| PSHE
Choose your favourite (or scariest). What do they do? Why are they good at being a villain? Why are they the most villainous villain? You could think about Darth Vader, Scar, Professor Snape. What about Tom from Tom and Jerry, is he a villain? |
Maths
TTRS – We are having a Battle of the bands with the other Year 3 class. It will start on Monday and run until Friday so don’t forget to pay every right answer counts!! |
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Year 3 have been tackling the tricky subject of fractions! They have been showing their understanding of parts and wholes all week and today they began working on tenths. The children were able to use images and express the fractions they could see in many different ways. Their work was amazing; deeper understanding was shown by all.
Year 3 have been researching Cruella de Vil, as part of their Heroes and Villains topic, with the aim of eventually writing a biography about her life. Today, they were very lucky to have a visit from the lady herself! The children were able to interview her and ask her lots of questions and find out all the juicy details about her life!
Year 3 were lucky enough yesterday to have some gymnastics training from a specialist gym teacher. They were able to practise 3 different types of rolls, counter and tension balances and were even able to use some of them on various pieces of apparatus.
Year 3 have started a new using on fractions today. They started by exploring the part-whole relationship. The children could recognise what made the whole and then identify part of the whole. This understanding will be really important when understanding fractions.
| Year 3 Home Learning – Friday 28th February 2020
(All learning to be handed in Wednesday 11th March 2020) |
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| Reading
Please encourage your child to read for at least 15 minutes at least five times per week. Please record what you have read in your reading record. |
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| Spellings
Like reading, Spelling is very important for your writing. Spellodrome will have targeted spelling lists each week linking to the spelling focus in class. Challenge yourself and see how many points you can earn! |
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| Home Learning Menu
Over the next 2 weeks you must complete an activity/series of activities that total at least 15 points. How you choose to do so is up to you! For example, you may choose to do one fifteen and a five-point activity or you could do two ten points; you could also choose to do three five-point activities – it is completely your choice! Have a look at the activity menu below. |
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| 15 points | 10 points | 5 points |
| Maths
Have a go at cracking codes. On the website below you will see 6 different types of code breaking activities. Have a go at, at least 2 of these. Remember to bring in your coded message and the tool for solving it. We will be able to have some time to crack each other’s codes in school. https://www.melissaanddoug.com/blogpost?postId=6-secret-codes-for-kids |
Art
Sketch a portrait of your hero from photographs (think about your North Star, who inspires you?) |
Reading
Collect stories from newspapers and magazines everyday heroes and make a clippings board. Heroic acts might include saving people or animals from danger, fighting fires or donating organs to help another person. |
| Literacy
Investigate 1920’s slang used by gangster of the a day. Can you find out what these mean: attaboy, bee’s knees, beef, big cheese, big house, caper, coppers, joint, let’s blouse, moll, rhatz, scram, sitting pretty, soup job, swell. |
PSHE
Make a list of 5 positive things that you and your friends could do to improve your school environment. Write your ideas on ‘helping hands’ and decorate them beautifully. |
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| Design
Design a poster to advertise a charity that you are interested in helping. What do they do? Why are they important? How could people help them? |
Writing
Write a fact file about a real-life hero past or present. |
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| Writing
This is an example of a riddle. Can you solve the riddle and make one of your own? |
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Year 3 had an afternoon of musical appreciation this afternoon as they immersed themselves in different classical scores created to depict various film villains. First, the children moved their bodies to the music and discussed how it made them feel. Then, the children used different symbols to represent dynamics, tempo, timbre, duration and pitch creating their own graphic scores. They listened to: The Imperial March from Star Wars; Miss Gulch’s theme music from the Wizard of Oz and Voldemort’s theme tune from Harry Potter.
Today, Year 3 have begun their new topic, Heroes and Villains, by pretending to be villains and trying to send secret messages using codes. First, they learnt how to use a code wheel. Then they made different invisible inks one from lemon juice and the other from bicarbonate and soda.
Oak Class have had sometime today to email Zeus as part of their Gods and Mortal topic. The children were very keen to explain to Zeus everything they had learnt so far and ask him some questions about his unusual family!
Fantastic mathematical reasoning going on in Year 3 today with children exploring multiplication using the bar model and the area model to make connections.
Year 3 have spent some time this morning using different representations of multiplication and division to explore their understanding. Amazing explanations of how to using models has developed their understanding!
Straight back to school and amazing investigations have been going on in Year 3. Children have been using manipulatives to explain the connections between the 2 times table and the 4 times table.
This afternoon Year 3 have been harnessing the power of water! The children had to choose to either create water powered paddle boats or water wheels.
We will be testing them later in the week!
This morning, Year 3 visited a river to see all the features they have been learning about in school.
The children took part in a variety of activities to further their growing knowledge of rivers. The activities included: kick sampling to find creatures that live in the river; taking water and soil samples for further experiments back at school; sensory observations to help with their future poetry writing and finding features like meanders, waterfalls and oxbow lakes.
We had a fantastic morning and all the children were very excited during the activities. They were also very successful find: water boatman, pond skaters, fresh water shrimps and even a mayfly nymph!
| Year 3 Home Learning – Friday 13th September 2019
(All learning to be handed in Wednesday 2nd October 2019.) |
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| Reading
Please encourage your child to read for at least 15 minutes at least five times per week. Please record what you have read in your reading record. |
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| Spellings
Like reading, Spelling is very important for your writing. Spellodrome will have targeted spelling lists each week linking to the lessons in class. Challenge yourself and see how many points you can earn! |
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| Home Learning Menu
Over the next 3 weeks you must complete an activity/series of activities that total at least 20 points. How you choose to do so is up to you! For example, you may choose to do one fifteen and a five-point activity or you could do two ten points; you could also choose to do four five-point activities – it is completely your choice! Have a look at the activity menu below. |
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| 15 points | 10 points | 5 points |
| River Nile Study
We will be studying rivers- both here and around the world. We will be thinking of the importance, and impact, rivers have on human populations as well as wildlife. |
Make a river fact file
Use the website below to discover amazing facts about rivers |
Art work Have a go at drawing, painting or sketching your own river. There are some very good tutorials on line |
| Times tables 1 hour (split into at least three chunks) each of TT Rockstars. Or try place value basketball https://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/place-value-basketball | ||
| Visit a river.
Find out facts about it- include source of the river and outflow (what does the mouth of the river flow into). You can choose how to present your research. |
Research river dolphins
https://kidzfeed.com/pink-river-dolphin-facts/ Present your findings in a form of your choosing- ready to share your new learning in school. |
Vocabulary
Choose 5 words from our river vocabulary list and practise spelling them and apply into a sentence: Flow, meandering, channel, valley, ocean, spring, source, sediment, erode, river bank. |
As part of our Sport’s Week, the children have been able to have skateboarding tuition. The was an array of abilities but all were able to develop their skills and challenge themselves.
As part of their learning on life-cycles, Year 5 have been dissecting flowers to see for themselves the different parts. They have also researched what each of the parts do and how the life-cycle of a
Congratulations to our 5 mathematicians who took part in an inter-schools maths competition today. The children, from both Year 5 classes, were up against 3 other schools to solve a range of maths problems in a set time. The children represented their school amazingly well and triumphed over their competitors by a convincing 12 points!
Fantastic work! Well done!
This afternoon Year 5 have carried out a variety of investigations involving forces. They have learnt about air-resistance, gravity, friction, magnetism as well as pushes and pulls.
Our new learning journey is ‘Making Tracks’, during this topic we will be learning about forces. This afternoon, Year 5 began their learning with investigating ‘spinners’. They identified the different variables and then designed a fair test to find out how they could reduce air-resistance to make the spinner fall faster.
Bonsai class held an election today to find a new school council representative. First, they watched a video about parliament and how the democratic process works. Then we set up a voting booth so everybody could take part in the secret ballot. Emmie, our out-going school councillor, was the returning officer and she announced the result. Lily-Mae will be Bonsai’s new school councillor. Congratulations!
| Year 5 and 6 Home Learning- Friday 7thDecember. Due in Friday 14thDecember. |
| Reading – Please encourage your child to read every day for at least 20 minutes
Spellings –please practice them and remember you can now use ‘Spellodrome’. Times Tables – Rock Stars |
You need to look for the celebration your group is working on.
| You are currently working on the celebration of Diwali on Friday you will be setting up your table to represent a traditional Hindu celebration. This week for home learning you may like to think about completing one of the tasks below to further enhance your group’s table.
Decorations Make paper lanterns, create firework art, create flower garlands, finds some battery-powered fairy lights or tea light Food Sugar disk sweets, samosas, home-made festive sweets such as Jalebis (please remember no nuts) Optional Extras Create a traditional costume to wear, create some jewellery, cut out footprints to place on the floor to welcome Lakshmi |
| You are currently working on the celebration of Christmas on Friday you will be setting up your table to represent a traditional Jewish celebration. This week for home learning you may like to think about completing one of the tasks below to further enhance your group’s table.
Decorations Make a red and gold wreath, create cardboard Christmas tree, create decorations for the tree, finds some battery-powered fairy lights Food Mince Pie, Gingerbread, Christmas pudding, yule log Optional Extras Make a stocking, create small nativity scene, make some crackers |
| You are currently working on the celebration of Hanukah on Friday you will be setting up your table to represent a traditional Jewish celebration. This week for home learning you may like to think about completing one of the tasks below to further enhance your group’s table.
Decorations Make a blue and white wreath, create a Star of David, create blue and white bunting, finds some battery-powered fairy lights or tea light Food Potato Latke, doughnuts, sweet noodle kugel Optional Extras Find the instructions playing for dreidel, create a dreidel, make some gold coins |
| Year 5 Home Learning- Friday 23thNovember. Due in Wednesday 28thNovember. |
| Reading – Please encourage your child to read every day for at least 20 minutes
Spellings –please practice them and remember you can now use ‘Spellodrome’. Times Tables – Rock Stars |
| RE
You are working in groups to create an interactive layer text about the Winter Festivals of 3 world religions. This week for home learning we would like you to do some research for one of your information pages. Discuss with your group which pages you still need to find information for and then pick a different page each. Remember, research is notes about a topic it needs to be in your own words. It will then be typed into your interactive layer text.
My group would like me to research __________________________________ |
In the lead up to Christmas, the children in Year 5 are investigating Winter Festivals from 3 different world religions. Today, the children have been working in groups, some of the children researching the festivals and others creating hyperlinks to join their slides together.
Year 5 Spelling Group 1 Week 3 Focus: ‘ent’ words
Handed out on Monday 24thSeptember; Tested on Monday 1st October
- Apparent
- Excellent
- Confident
- Equipment
- Frequently
- Efficient
- Sufficient
- Environment
- Parliament
- Government
Note: Spellings 1-7 focus on this week’s phoneme focus; spellings 8-10 are from either the Year 3 & 4 or Year 5 & 6 word lists.
Year 5 Spelling Group 2 Week 3 Focus: ‘ent’ words
Handed out on Monday 24thSeptember; Tested on Monday 1stOctober
- Apparent
- Excellent
- Confident
- Different
- Absent
- Present
- Decent
- Environment
- Parliament
- Government
Note: Spellings 1-7 focus on this week’s phoneme focus; spellings 8-10 are from either the Year 3 & 4 or Year 5 & 6 word lists.
Year 5 Spelling Group 3 Week 3 Focus: ‘sound s, spelt c’ words
Handed out on Monday 24thSeptember; Tested on Monday 1stOctober
- face
- race
- prince
- circus
- force
- bounce
- city
- Bear
- Can’t
- Again
Note: Spellings 1-7 focus on this week’s phoneme focus; spellings 8-10 are from high frequency word lists.
On this very windy afternoon, Year 5 spent some time outside creating their mod roc warrior figures. Thanks to all the parents who were all to help. All the figure look amazing and will be ready for painting early next week.
| Year 5 Home Learning- Friday 14th September. Due in Wednesday 19thSeptember. |
| Reading – Please encourage your child to read every day for at least 20 minutes
Spellings – Spellings will be given out on Monday. In addition to learning the 10 words, please practice them and remember you can now use ‘Spellodrome’. Times tables– It is crucial that year 5 and 6 children know their times table facts up to 12 x 12 – this really supports other areas in maths. Please make sure your child regularly practices them until they become second nature. |
| SOLE- My Compass for Life
As part of our whole school learning journey, we are encouraging the children to think about their aspirations and the journey they will take to support them achieving their goals. We would like your child to create an Acrostic Poem of their own name. These should be creatively presented and a piece of work that they are proud to put in their SOLE book. Good luck! Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. |
Bonsai have challenged themselves today by scaling a very large wall!
As part of our whole school learning journey – My Compass for Life- the children were using our school values, risk-taking, collaboration and resilience, to push themselves as far as they could.
| Year 5 Home Learning- Friday 7th September |
| Reading – Please encourage your child to read every day for at least 20 minutes
Spellings – Spellings will be given out on Monday. In addition to learning the 10 words, please practice ‘ie’ words ‘Spellodrome.’ Times tables– it is crucial that year 5 and 6 children know their times table facts up to 12 x 12 – this really supports other areas in maths. Please make sure your child regularly practices them until they become second nature. |
| SOLE- My Compass for Life
As part of our new whole school learning journey, we are encouraging the children to think about their aspirations and the journey they will take to support them achieving their goals. We would like your child to write a letter to a chosen person or company, explaining their passion and asking for any advice on how to achieve their goals. We sent similar letters off last year and got some amazing responses from Olympic athletes, authors and the military. Your child can either send the letter off directly from home or can bring it in and we’ll send it from school. Either way, they will need an additional copy to put in their SOLE book. Good luck! Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. |
| Year 5/6 Home Learning- Friday 22ndJune |
| Reading – Please encourage your child to read every day for at least 20 minutes every day. |
| Maths – Complete the arithmetic sheet without using a calculator
Summer Fayre – Please get all the props/parts to your games for the Summer Fayre ready. They need to be in school on Monday as each group will be setting up their stalls for a trial run. iCan – Please make sure your costumes are ready we will need them in school soon.year 5 |
Congratulations to all of Year 5, who have taken part in bike ability. They have all passed their Level 1 and most have passed their Level 2!
The scheme aims to give children experience and understanding of how to keep themselves safe when riding on the road.
Here’s some of the pictures from Year 5 and 6’s evacuation day that we took part in today. Activities included, writing and drawing postcards, singing, wartime games and deciphering, Morse Code. A great day was had by all!
Today, Year Five are playing cricket as part of sports week.
They were playing Cricket Tag with Buzz. Buzz gave loads of advice to us and made us all laugh. We are very happy that Buzz has come in and has taught us about skills needed in cricket. We then played Mayhem Cricket this gives each child a chance to bat, field, collect and be a scorer. Report written by Elle and DJ
A tiring day but a good meal to end. Wrestling with the WiFi but luckily not with the local snake who came out to say “Hello “ More to come tomorrow.?
Today, Year 5 have begun their preparations for iCan Too. They have started to build their articulated Jabberwocky puppet. Working in small team, they each have responsibility for a part.
| Year 5 Home Learning- Friday 20th April 2018 |
| Reading – Please encourage your child to read every day for at least 20 minutes
Spellings – Practise spellings from the spelling list |
| Literacy/SOLE – Jabberwocky –iCan
For our iCan performance in July, Year 5 are going to be performing the poem Jabberwocky. For home learning this week we would like the children to begin to learn the poem by heart. There are lots of nonsense words within the poem but the children have been learning about these words all week so they should have a good idea of how to pronounce them. Next week in SOLE, we are going to begin to create a giant Jabberwock puppet. I would be useful, if you have some, for the children to have a pair of gardening gloves in school as we will be working with wire mesh. Please DO NOT buy some if you don’t have any, it is not essential. We would also like the children to bring in an oversized messy shirt which they can keep in school and slip on easily over their school uniform whenever they are working on the puppet. This will help keep their uniform clean. An old t-shirt of shirt that belonged to mum or dad is ideal. |
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
This afternoon, Year 5 have begun to design puppets, masks and costumes for their iCan performance of the Jabberwocky. Over the next few weeks, they will begin to build their giant Jabberwocky puppet!
Bonsai were magnificent today in their violin concert! They played and sang 5 songs that they had learnt over the last 9 weeks. It is truly incredible what they have achieved in such a short time.
Year 5 began working in teams today to create their dinosaur pop-up books. They learnt how to make things pop up in different ways. They then decided how big their book was going to be and used their home learning to create the information on the page.
Year 5 have been researching the types of dinosaur and fossil discoveries that hit the news. They have been looking at the different finds that make the headlines in order to create their own sensational newspaper stories.
Year 5 have continued their work on fossils today by making cast fossils. They have used a combination of clay and plaster of paris to form their fossils.
Mrs Davie’s Spelling Group: tion, ious and ial words
Handed out on Friday 16th March; Tested on Friday 23rd March
- composition
- promotion
- curious
- tedious
- infectious
- financial
- artificial
- privilege
- vehicle
- nuisance
Note: Spellings 1-7 focus on our spelling rules for this week and words 8-10 are on the Year 5/6 word list.
Miss Wolf’s Spelling Group: tion, ious and ial words
Handed out on Friday 16th March; Tested on Friday 23rd March
- reaction
- subtraction
- previous
- serious
- glorious
- special
- social
- privilege
- vehicle
- nuisance
Note: Spellings 1-7 focus on our spelling rules for this week and words 8-10 are on the Year 5/6 word list.
| Year 5 Home Learning- Friday 16th March 2018 |
| Reading – Please encourage your child to read every day for at least 20 minutes
Spellings – Practise spellings from the spelling list |
| Dinosaurs
In your groups, you are going to create an information book about dinosaurs. Each page will need to feature a different dinosaur and include a pop-up picture of the dinosaur and some information about the dinosaur. This week, for home learning, we would like you to research the dinosaur, which you have agreed with your group, that will be featured on your page. Information you could gather could be: Size, colour, eating habits, footprint, time period, special features, where they have been found etc.
The dinosaur I need to research is:______________________________________________ Stegosaurus Diplodocus Pterodactyl Tyrannosaurus Rex Triceratops Ankylosaurus Iguanodon |
Carrying on with our investigations into fossils, today the children have been finding out about coprolites (fossilised poo). They had three sets of coprolites and they needed to find out what creatures they came from. They did this by finding out what was left in the poo.
Continuing Year 5’s work on fossils, today they investigated how different fossils were formed. They used mini dinosaurs, skeletons and their footprints to create the four types of fossils: true form, mould, cast and trace.
Dinosaur tracks appeared on the playground today. Year 5 have been learning how palaeontogists find out information about dinosaurs using trace fossils. Today in maths, they had to measure the stride length and footprint size of the tracks and use this to determine whether the dinosaur was walking, trotting or running. To do this,they needed to find the average stride length, and the hip height of the dinosaur. They then used a formula to find out how quickly the animal was moving.
| Bonsai Home Learning- Friday 9th March 2018 |
| Reading – Please encourage your child to read every day for at least 20 minutes
Spellings – Practise spellings from the spelling list |
| Darwin’s Diaries
Darwin was a naturalist, biologist and geologist who sailed the world collecting and observing species from all over the world. He kept diaries of his observations which he illustrated in order to document plants and animals that he had never seen before. Below are 4 extracts from his diary. Your task is to present his findings in an interesting way for your SOLE book. You may wish to draw some of his specimens that he describes, you could recreate his diary as a book with his words and sketches. It is up to you but it needs to be ready to stick it straight into your SOLE book to accompany your work on Darwin. |
Jan 2nd
The ocean, blue from the reflected sky, was seen in glimpses through the forest. Islands crowned with palms varied our horizon. As we passed along, we were amused by watching the humming birds. I counted four species — the smallest at but a short distance precisely resembles in its habits and appearance a Sphinx. The wings moved so rapidly, that they were scarcely visible, and so remaining stationary the little bird darted its beak into the wild flowers, making an extraordinary buzzing noise at the same time, with its wings. Those that I have met with, frequent shaded and retired forests and may there be seen chasing away the rival butterfly.
Jan 13th
As the boat was landing me at the Mount, we surprised a large Cabra or Capincha on the rocks. After a long and animated chase in a little bay, I succeeded in shooting it through the head with a ball. These animals abound in the Orinoco and are not uncommon here, but from their shyness and powers of swimming and diving are difficult to be obtained. It is like in its structure a large guinea-pig: in its habits a water rat. It weighed 98 pounds. Having sent my game on board in triumph, I collected great numbers of different animals: some beautiful snakes, lizards and beetles. Under stones were several scorpions about 2 inches long; when pressed by a stick to the ground, they struck it with their stings with such force as very distinctly to be heard.
Jan 23rd
The sea is here tenanted by many curious birds, amongst which the Steamer is remarkable; this is a large sort of goose, which is quite unable to fly but uses its wings to flapper along the water; from thus beating the water it takes its name. Here also are many Penguins, which in their habits are like fish, so much of their time do they spend under water and when on the surface they show little of their bodies excepting the head — their wings are merely covered with short feathers. So that there are three sorts of birds which use their wings for more purposes than flying; the Steamer as paddles, the penguin as fins and the Ostrich spreads its plumes like sails to the breeze.
Jan 31st
At about 11 o’clock, we neared the Western coast of St Jago and by about three we anchored in the bay of Porto Praya. St Jago viewed from the sea is even much more desolate than the land about Santa Cruz. The Volcanic fire of past ages and the scorching heat of a tropical sun have in most places rendered the soil sterile and unfit for vegetation. The country rises in successive steps of table land, interspersed by some truncate conical hills and the horizon is bounded by an irregular chain of more lofty and bolder hills. The scene when viewed through the peculiar atmosphere of the tropics was one of great interest: if indeed a person fresh from sea & walking for the first time in a grove of Cocoa-nut trees, can be a judge of anything but his own happiness.