Have you tried out our October spelling lists? This month, we explored how to spell l sound after the letter m, shared 10 alternatives for the word talk, and prepared for Halloween with these scary words. We also brought back our seasonal game Spooky Spelling – are you brave enough to play? Is it a which or a witch? What do the words evil, scream, banshee, zombie, and spooky have in common? Why does Frankenstein need a capital letter? We celebrated spooky season by sharing 10 writing tips for Halloween. When you are writing, it is important to choose the words you use to begin a sentence carefully. You can...
Are you ready for Halloween? Make sure you don't make these 10 mistakes this spooky season: Don’t muddle up the words witch and which! Our spelling game Which Witch is great for practice! Heard a scary sound? It’s a probably a creak, not a creek! As Frankenstein is a name, it needs capital letters. Make sure you don’t confuse forget the apostrophe if you’re writing about Frankenstein’s monster. Don’t get caught out by silent letters – watch out for the sneaky ‘h’ in the words ghost and ghoul . Describing somethin...
Reading allows you to travel to different worlds, experience new cultures, and walk in the shoes of fascinating characters. It’s also a great way to help you improve your spelling and vocabulary – even during the school holidays! Here are some reading suggestions for the summer. Click on the title of any book to find the word list that goes with it. Don’t forget to try our Summer Spelling game! Year 7: The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne: An emotional tale set during World War II that explores the unlikely friendship between two boys on opposite sides of a concentration camp fence. Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman: A th...
Happy Halloween to all our subscribers! This month we’ve been looking at all things spooky and scary in our Word for Wednesday blog posts. Have you ever seen a ghost? How about a were-hyena? Where does the word vampire come from? Who was Victor Frankenstein? We also stayed on theme in our 10 Words blog post where we shared alternatives for the word scary. Whether your Halloween plans are alarming, chilling, or eerie, we’ve got the right word for you. Maybe it’s because we’ve got handwashing on the brain, but this month we decided to base our Idioms blog post on hands. From lending a hand to having your hands tied, there are plenty of idioms to learn in ...
It’s time for our last Word for Wednesday post in October! This month’s blog posts have been themed around all things spooky and scary. So far, we’ve looked at the origins of the words ghost, werewolf, and vampire. Today’s word is technically the name of a character from a book. Frankenstein was written in 1818 by English author Mary Shelley. The story is about a scientist called Victor Frankenstein who, in an unusual experiment, creates a monstrous living creature out of old body parts. Here is how the creature is described in the book: “His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. Beautifu...
From sandwiches to wellington boots to the Nobel Prize, many words take their names from people or fictional characters, and these people and characters are known as eponyms. Today, to celebrate Halloween, we’re looking at three scary stories that have influenced the English language. Frankenstein Mary Shelley published Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus in 1818 when she was just twenty years old. In the story, Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who has discovered a secret technique for creating life, tries to build a man. His creation ends up more like a monster and turns against him. According to the Oxford English dictionary, it was the writer Charles Lamb who ...
In this week’s Word for Wednesday we’ll be looking into Steven Hawking’s bleak warning of a future governed by artificial intelligence or AI. A popular theme that has been explored in science fiction from the very beginnings of the genre is a future in which humans superseded by another race – be it robots, aliens or even… apes (please, no more sequels!) The possibility of this eventuality actually arising is closer than ever, according to Steven Hawking. He warns that the rapid development of AI (or Artificial Intelligence) should be approached with caution, as a computer that could ‘think’ for itself would not be “limited by ...
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