1 Year 2 week 4 of January Home school lessons, beginning Monday 25/1/21 Monday 25 th January 2021 English This week’s English is all about Folktales. Go through the Folktale information PowerPoint to learn all about Folktales. We are concentrating on the folktale The Pixies of Withypool. A pixie is a supernatural being in folktales and children's stories, they usually look like tiny humans, with pointed ears and a pointed hat. A bit like a fairy- think Tinkerbell! Read the first page of the story The Pixies of Withypool together (it is on the next page). Let your child read the story with your help. Stop at the sentence ending ‘‘they were just there when she woke in the morning’. Talk about the following questions. You might like to write or draw some of the answers in your book/ notebook. • What animals did Sally keep on her farm? • After Farmer Abraham died, Sally “didn’t have too much time for grieving.” What do you think ‘grieving’ means? • Why didn’t she have much time for grieving? • At what time of year did Farmer Abraham catch the fever and die? • At what time of year did Sally fall ill? • What were the two main jobs that needed to be done at harvest time? • What did Sally use apples for? • Why couldn’t the farmhands help her with the harvest? • “Oh dear, oh dear! I am ruined!” moaned Sally as she lay ill. What do you think ‘ruined’ means? • Sally wants to know who is helping her with the work. What do you think she will do next?
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
1
Year 2 week 4 of January Home school lessons, beginning Monday 25/1/21
Monday 25th January 2021
English
This week’s English is all about Folktales. Go through the Folktale information PowerPoint to
learn all about Folktales.
We are concentrating on the folktale The Pixies of Withypool. A pixie is a supernatural being in
folktales and children's stories, they usually look like tiny humans, with pointed ears and a
pointed hat. A bit like a fairy- think Tinkerbell!
Read the first page of the story The Pixies of Withypool together (it is on the next page). Let your
child read the story with your help.
Stop at the sentence ending ‘‘they were just there when she woke in the morning’.
Talk about the following questions. You might like to write or draw some of the answers in your
book/ notebook.
• What animals did Sally keep on her farm?
• After Farmer Abraham died, Sally “didn’t have too much time for grieving.” What do you
think ‘grieving’ means?
• Why didn’t she have much time for grieving?
• At what time of year did Farmer Abraham catch the fever and die?
• At what time of year did Sally fall ill?
• What were the two main jobs that needed to be done at harvest time?
• What did Sally use apples for?
• Why couldn’t the farmhands help her with the harvest?
• “Oh dear, oh dear! I am ruined!” moaned Sally as she lay ill. What do you think ‘ruined’
means?
• Sally wants to know who is helping her with the work. What do you think she will do
next?
2
The Pixies of Withypool – A Somerset Folktale
Waterhouse Farm was close to the little village of Withypool in a beautiful stretch of
countryside called Exmoor in the county of Somerset. The farm was close to the River
Barle and belonged to Farmer Abraham and his wife Sally.
They had no children but kept many animals: chickens and ducks, sheep and pigs and
goats. It was a big farm with many fields where they grew corn, and a big orchard of
apple trees.
Now sadly, one cold winter, old Farmer Abraham caught the fever and died, leaving
Sally all alone. She missed Abraham badly, but because she still had the animals to
look after, the corn to harvest and the apples to pick, she didn’t have too much time
for grieving.
She managed the work, although it wasn’t easy, until one day she herself fell ill with
the fever. This came at a very bad time of year – harvest time. This was the time of
year when she had to thresh the corn and pick the apples to make cider.
Now she did have a couple of farm hands who helped her at the busiest times of year,
but unfortunately, they caught the fever as well! Whatever was she to do? Sally and
the farm hands were all too ill to work. The fever had made them so weak that all
they could do was take to their beds.
“Oh dear, oh dear! I am ruined!” moaned Sally as she tossed and turned in her bed.
“Who will gather the harvest in? I will have to give up the farm. It is all too much.”
But the next morning, when Sally was feeling well enough to get up, she discovered
something wonderful. Ten bags of corn were piled up neatly by the back door of the
farm, along with ten tubs of shiny red apples.
Sally could hardly believe it. Who had done this? The farmhands said it wasn’t them.
To Sally’s amazement this went on for several days. Whoever was doing the
harvesting seemed to be working at night because there were no bags of corn or tubs
of apples when she went to bed – they were just there when she woke in the morning.
STOP HERE ON DAY 1. There are some questions for you to think about, on the previous page.