250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns

With so many things going on this week it has been difficult to decide what to blog about. We’ve already mentioned Chinese New Year, it was Holocaust Memorial Day yesterday, and Australia Day on Monday. Unfortunately it hasn’t been possible to post example clips from the gallery on all of these topics, but if you take out a free 30-day trial and use the search function at the top of the page you will be able to find plenty of clips yourself. The KS1 literacy clip about the people, animals, and culture of Australia is fantastic, particularly with the didgeridoo sound effects!

Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/the-o/

On Sunday it was the 250th anniversary of the birth of Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns, and although the date has passed, we couldn’t let it go completely unmarked here. Hopefully some of you might still be looking at ‘Rabbie’ in the classroom this week and could use this example clip which retells the story of one of his most famous poems: Tam O’Shanter.

Written in 1790, Tam O’Shanter is regarded to be one of Burns’ finest poems, and also one of his longest. You can find a full version of the poem on this page, which also has glossary links from the Scots language words in the poem. Children could use the context and the sentence surrounding some of  the terms to guess what they might mean.

The clip also explains how the Cutty Sark ship got its name from a short petticoat that features in the poem, and why it is still possible to see a grey horse’s tail hanging from the figurehead of the ship today:

Title of clip	Tam O’Shanter and the Cutty Sark
Curriculum location	Primary Module B  >  Literacy  >  Year 3  >  Narrative  >  Unit 2: Myths and legends  >  Section 1: Speaking  >  Sustain conversation, explain or give reasons for their views or choices
Description	A retelling of the poem by Robert Burns, ‘Tam O’Shanter’ and the origins of the Cutty Sark ship: the Cutty Sark ship; a horseman riding in front of the full moon; a storm gathering over moorland; old ruins, a graveyard and the remains of a church; the moon travelling quickly across the sky; a huge bonfire; statues of people revelling and dancing; the moonlight; a horse racing to a river and crossing the water; a carving of Tam O’Shanter being chased by witches; bridges over big rivers and the figurehead of the Cutty Sark ship clutching a mare’s tail.
Duration	2 minutes 49 seconds

 

Please note that this is an example clip provided through our YouTube channel and does not reflect the actual quality of clips in the gallery