Monthly Archives: November 2015

We are focusing this week on learning some key spellings of ‘wow’ words we might want to use in our writing about Coventry Blitz. We have found out some interesting things about where words come from.

The Parthenon is an ancient Greek temple.

We learned about the French origins of ancient (ancient) and that it is also linked originally to the Latin word meaning before (ante). Can you think of other words that use the prefix anti which is also linked to this word?

Conscience is another interesting word linked to science (the search for knowledge)! The con prefix means with and the second part of the word is from scion (knowledge). So, if you have a conscience, you do know (have understanding) of something (e.g. My conscience told me not to drop litter…). Conscious too means you are  aware (you know what is happening) (e.g. I was conscious that I had dropped egg down my jumper but hoped nobody would notice!). If you are unconscious, you don’t know what is happening!

Desperate is also from a Latin word meaning out of hope (e.g. Bill clung desperately to the wreckage of his boat as the waves crashed about him). We talked about you can desperately want something to happen but maybe this is used in this way because you don’t think it is really that likely but really want it to happen! (e.g. I was desperate to see Coventry win the FA cup!)

We are also getting more confident at spelling -ous words and this week will be practising words like disastrous (from disaster), marvellous (from marvel, linked to another French word for wonder),  mischievous , etc…

See what you can find out about the words below that we will investigate next week. Where do you think they come from (e.g. other words, maybe other languages, etc.)?

government            secretary

recommend            correspond

Can you also make sure you are really confident about when to use:

Where/were/wear
their/there/they’re