Anglo-Saxon facts & Performance Poetry
07 May 2021
Over the last couple of weeks, we have been finding out about the Anglo-Saxons.
Firstly, we discovered that they came from Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands in three tribes: The Angles, The Saxons and The Jutes. We found out the differing opinions on why they came to Britain in the first place, and then we started to discover where in Britain they settled.
We were interested to find out that the Anglo-Saxons enjoyed fighting, and that they frequently fought against each other for land. Each Kingdom had their own chief and army; we discussed how this was almost like taking Britain back to the time of the Celts, before even the Romans had invaded.
We then went on to look at what the Anglo-Saxons did about house and buildings. Did they make use of those left behind by the Romans? No they didn't! They built their own, which were small wooden huts with a straw roof; they only had one room. The Anglo-Saxons looked for land which had lots of natural resources and built their villages there. This was again another way in which the Anglo-Saxons took Britain back to a way of life which was more similar to the Celts than the Romans.
Next, we are moving on to 793AD and the first raid by the Vikings.
Here is some of our Anglo-Saxon work...
Last week, we shared some of our wonderful, imaginative narrative poems. Over the last week, for homework, the children have been learning their narrative poems so that they can recite and perform them from memory.
Today was the day they had to share them with the rest of the class and they did so well! Even the most nervous of them managed to stand up at the front of the classroom in front of all their peers and recite part or all of their own poem. I was very proud of them all; there were lots of Dojos given out.