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Pre-reading Year 8 homework booklet - Nurture

October Half Term 2021

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Contents

Page 3 Introduction and reading rules

Page 4 English

Pages 5-6 Geography

Page 7 Maths

Page 8 Design and Technology

Page 9 Science

Page 10 Computing

Page 11 History

Page 12 Music

Page 13 Art

Page 14 French

Page 15 Physical Education

Page 16 EBC

Page 17 Drama

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Introduction

This homework booklet is designed to encourage you to read and research

the topics you will be studying in each subject next term.

Research shows that pupils who read regularly, achieve higher results in tests.

WPSFG Reading Rules

First reading is understanding

• Highlight any words you do not understand and try to use strategies to

work out what they mean

• Track with a ruler

• Summarise key points

Second reading is zooming in

• Identifying any interesting features

• How does the extract make you feel?

• How might this extract be interpreted by others?

Once you have finished your pre-reading, look for other examples of

research and reading you could do

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English: The origins of A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol is a novella by Charles Dickens about Ebenezer Scrooge, an old man,

who is well-known for his miserly ways.

On Christmas Eve, Scrooge is visited by a series of ghosts, starting with his old business

partner, Jacob Marley. The three spirits which follow, the Ghosts of Christmas Past,

Christmas Present and Christmas Yet to Come, show Scrooge how his mean behaviour

has affected those around him. At the end of the story he is relieved to discover that

there is still time for him to change and we see him transformed into a generous and kind-

hearted human being.

Social and historical context

Dickens wrote this story in 1843. At the time there was a tradition for reading ghost stories

at Christmas, hence the numerous spirits that Scrooge encounters. The themes of wealth

and injustice are clear comments on the inequalities of wealth distribution in Victorian

England.

Plot summary

1. On Christmas Eve, Scrooge makes his clerk, Bob Cratchit, work in the cold.

2. He refuses an invitation to his nephew Fred's Christmas party and will not give

money to the charity collectors.

3. At home he is visited by the ghost of his old business partner, Marley.

4. The Ghost of Christmas Past wakes Scrooge and shows him moments from his

childhood, his apprenticeship and his failed engagement.

5. The Ghost of Christmas Present takes him to the Cratchit's home, where he is

saddened by the ill, but kind, Tiny Tim. He is also shown how Fred celebrates

Christmas with friends and how others celebrate Christmas together.

6. The final ghost is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come who terrifies Scrooge with

visions of his death.

7. Scrooge awakes on Christmas Day and is delighted to find he has the chance to

repent of his miserly ways. He buys a turkey for the Cratchits and attends his

nephew's party.

8. Scrooge becomes like a second father to Tiny Tim and gains a reputation for

knowing how to celebrate Christmas.

Moral message: A Christmas Carol is a moral tale about the spirit of giving and being kind

to one another.

Reflection questions:

• Are people still greedy and unkind in today’s society?

• Should rich people give money and help to poor people?

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Geography: Globalisation

What is ‘Globalisation’?

Taken from BBC Bitesize and Geog.3

The world is now a very small, interconnected place, as a result of globalisation.

Globalisation is the increasing connection between places and people across the planet

– the world is more connected now today due to developments in technology and

transport. Improved transport means that people and products can be moved around

the world more quickly. Distance between places hasn’t changed but the time needed

to cover these distances has. Improvements in technology, such as the internet, has

meant that money can be transferred instantly between locations. People can also use

telephones and the internet to communicate more easily in ‘real time’. Millions of people

are interconnected thanks to social media e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Skype or YouTube.

Books, movies, and music are now instantaneously available all around the world thanks

to the development of the digital world and the power of the internet.

Have a look at the facts below that show how globalised the world is:

• In the early 1900s it used to take roughly 6 weeks to travel to Australia by boat. Now

it takes 24 hours by plane!

• On average there are 3.5 billion Google searches a day on mobile phones

• 70% of our chocolate in the UK comes from African countries e.g. Ivory Coast

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Challenge

• How global are you?

We are linked to real people all over

the world through the things we buy.

Clothing is a good example. Most of

the clothes we buy are made in

other countries. Look at the labels

inside 10 items of clothing that you

own. Where were they made?

Make a list of the items and where

they were produced.

Do you notice any patterns? Where

are these countries?

Tasks:

• Research the key words in red to

find out what they mean – use

your findings to come up with a

definition for each word.

• Highlight any other key words that

you are unsure of. Make a note of

them and do some research to

help you come up with a

definition.

• What key term is used to describe

the increasing connection

between places and people

across the planet?

• How long did it used to take to

travel to Australia in the 1900s?

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Maths: Rotation

All of us are time conscious. We surround ourselves with alarm clocks, cuckoo

clocks, wristwatches, grandfather clocks and peering at them to make sure

we are sticking to our schedule. But have you ever taken a moment to

wonder why the needles on the face of a clock move the way they do? Why

do the hour and minute needles move from left to right (in what is now

called the ‘clockwise direction’) and not vice-versa? No, it is not the whim of

the inventor actually there is a scientific explanation for this observation.

Throughout history, time has been measured by the movement of the Sun

(or, more accurately, the motion of the Earth relative to the Sun). The earliest

form of timekeeping dates as far back as 3500 B.C.

Mechanical clocks were invented in the Northern Hemisphere in the 14th

century and the inventors naturally wanted the device to follow the sun’s

movement in the sky. In the Northern Hemisphere the Sun appears to move

in the sky from the left to the right and so the hands of the clock were made

to follow the Sun’s motion, moving from left to right or what is commonly

known as clockwise.

When something moves in a clockwise direction, it is moving in the same

direction as the hands on the clock:

When something moves in an anti-clockwise direction, it is moving in the

opposite direction:

Do you know there are some Jewish and Arabic clocks that run anti-clockwise? This

makes perfect sense as Arabic and Hebrew readers (Arabic and Hebrew characters are

written right to left) but baffles everyone else!

Task: What is the difference between clockwise and anticlockwise?

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Design and Technology: Inspiring women in Design

Stella Jean Stella Jean was raised in Rome by a Haitian mother and Italian father at "a time when the country was completely unprepared for multicultural families like mine...people constantly stopped in the streets to point at us.” But Jean credits her mixed background for her later success: Jean took her father's basic button-down shirts and mixed them with bright fabrics. This led to her main source of design inspiration: combining different

cultures. Jean won Vogue Italy's "Who Is On Next?" competition in 2011. In 2014, Giorgio Armani showcased Stella Jean's collection at the Armani theatre in Milan, and she was the first womenswear designer to present in the iconic space.

That same year, Jean collaborated with Christian Louboutin on a shoe collection. With high-profile collaborations under her belt, Jean was invited by the UN International Development Organization to join an ethical fashion program. Jean has also garnered an impressive list of celebrity clientele, including Beyonce and Rihanna. Even with all her global attention, Jean believes fashion shouldn't be exclusive. By inviting craftsmen and artisans to sit front row at her shows, she honours the people who made it all possible.

Zaha Hadid

The Iraqi-British Zaha Hadid became famous for her intensely futuristic architecture

characterized by curving façades, sharp angles, and severe materials such as concrete

and steel.

The structures she designed successfully accomplished what mystifies so many when

they observe great architecture: She took the strongest materials in the world and

manipulated them to form objects that appear soft and sturdy at the same time.

Over the last two decades, her work has been honoured by a long list of awards: In 2004 she was the

first woman to be awarded the Pritzker Prize; in 2010 and 2011 she received the Stirling Prize, a British

decoration for excellence in architecture; in 2014.

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Science: What is colour?

How do you know if a banana is raw, ripe or rotten? Well, you could obviously take a bite

and tell, but most of the times, you can tell just by looking. Especially if we’re talking about

rotten bananas. A raw banana would look green, a ripe one would be yellow and a

rotten one is most likely blackened. Have you wondered how we know the difference

between these different colours? Let’s find out.

What are Colours?

All the colours we perceive are an effect of light. The seemingly colourless sunlight

contains all the colours we can see, but at different wavelengths. In fact, colour itself, is

light of a particular wavelength, reflected.

When sunlight falls on an object, the surface of the object absorbs some of the light and

reflects the rest of it. Which wavelengths of light are reflected or absorbed depends on

the properties of the object.

Say the object is a ripe banana, it would absorb all the wavelengths of light except the

ones that correspond to the colour yellow. And we would thus see that a banana is

yellow. This property of the object changes as the object changes, which is why a raw

banana would look green, and a rotting banana would appear blackish.

Task: Write a summary paragraph on the text in your self-quizzing

book.

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Computing: Representing data

Representing data

All data inside a computer is transmitted as a series of electrical signals that

are either on or off. Therefore, for a computer to be able to process any kind

of data, including text, images and sound, they must be converted

into binary form. If the data is not converted into binary – a series of 1s and 0s

– the computer will simply not understand it or be able to process it.

Task What form must data be in for a computer to be able to understand it?

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History: What Is Slavery?

“Slavery is forced work where people become the property of others.

Evidence of slavery pre-dates (comes before) written records and has existed in

almost all ages, cultures and continents.”

- A definition of slavery from the guidebook to the International Slavery Museum

in Liverpool

When we think about slavery now, we normally think about slavery in America

between the 1500s – 1800s because it impacted so many people, but slavery

has existed as far back in history as we can trace.

Ancient civilisations such as the Ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans had

slaves.

Today, freedom from slavery is a human right. However, it is estimated that

nearly 21 million people alive today are victims of slavery.

Tasks:

1. Based on what you have just read, write your own definition of the term

‘slavery’

2. Summarise the reading in no more 50 words

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Music: Dynamics

1. Make a list of 5

sounds that would

be forte (loud).

2. Make a list of 5

sounds that

be piano (quiet).

3. What word is

used for very quiet?

4. Describe the

sounds you would

here if you were at

a rock concert.

Think about the

dynamics – would it

be loud or quiet?

Music can be loud or quiet, or somewhere in between. The

volume of a piece of music can change gradually or

suddenly. Another word for volume is DYNAMICS which is one of

our musical elements.

Dynamic markings

In music, we use lots of Italian keywords. This is because Italian

composers were seen as the leaders of European

music. Composers would use Italian when writing down directions

to performers. This is why we use the Italian words forte(loud)

and piano (quiet). These words tell you what dynamics to use

when playing a particular piece. Contrasts in dynamics are often

used to help set the mood of the piece and add expression.

Here are some of the dynamic directions and their abbreviations:

Italian key word Abbreviation Meaning

pianissimo pp very quiet

piano p quiet

mezzo piano mp moderately quiet

mezzo forte mf moderately loud

forte f loud

fortissimo ff very loud

crescendo cresc. gradually getting louder

diminuendo dim. gradually getting quieter

This sign is also used to show a CRESCENDO

This sign is also used to show

a DIMINUENDO

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Art & Design: Picasso

Pablo Picasso was born in a poor family in southern Spain in

1881, he was a child prodigy and ended as the greatest

painter of his century. After some early training with his father,

a drawing teacher, Picasso showed that he could paint

realistically at a very young age. He studied in Barcelona and

Madrid, and Picasso spent his younger years becoming

friends with a group of artists in Barcelona. His work began to

attract great attention and praise by the time he was twenty.

The time around 1901 is classified as his Blue Period. He

painted scenes of clowns, homeless people and women, all

in tones of blue. Important early works include his "Self- Portrait"

(1901) here on the right above, and ‘The Old Guitarist’ (1903-4)

left. As Picasso spent more time in Paris, as his painting

developed, and as he began to meet the right people, his

mood lifted. His painting remained much the same, but his

colours were warmer, or rosier, and his paintings were more

positive. This is sometimes called Picasso's Rose Period.

During this time, Picasso soaked in all the experimental energy

of the Parisian art scene and, inspired by other French painters

–especially Paul Cézanne, and the art of Africa and the Pacific

–Picasso began to create for himself a radically new style,

Cubism, a movement Picasso developed in collaboration with

another painter, Georges Braque.

Demolishing the traditional idea of 2D paintings, Picasso and

Braque painted objects as pieces and fragments, rather than

as whole objects; they wanted to paint as they thought, not as

they saw. As time went on, their paintings took on more and

more new viewpoints, and appeared more fragmented and

distorted. Picasso and Braque had found a way to change a

realistic subject into an abstract painting.

Picasso made valuable contributions to art throughout his entire life, but it was the

invention of Cubism that secured his immortality.

Write a short summary paragraph about Pablo Picasso and his artwork

Think: How would you describe this work to someone who had never seen it before?

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French: School Life in France

There are differences between school life in France and the UK. In France you don’t wear a uniform to school in France. They can wear jeans and trainers!

In France, the school hours are from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. However, often children have no school or only half a day on a Wednesday.

Many schools also have a lunch break of 2 hours. A standard school lunch will consist of a salad followed by a main course, with a side of vegetables, then a cheese course and a dessert which will often be fruit, and occasionally a pastry.

Extra-curricular activities usually take place outside of school in France.

Schools in France are secular, which means that they do not study religious education or celebrate religious festivals in school.

Compared to the UK, schools in France place more value on traditional academic styles. They put less value on creativity and self-exploration.

Answer the questions below:

1. Do children wear uniform in France? What can they wear instead?

________________________________________________________________

2. When does the school day start and finish in France?

________________________________________________________________

3. What do they have for lunch?

________________________________________________________________

4. When do extra-curricular activities take place?

________________________________________________________________

5. Complete the sentence below in English –

“In France, schools value more ______________________ styles rather than

______________________________ compared to schools in the ______.”

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Physical Education

Why it is important to cool down after physical activity.

After exercising it is important to cool down properly. This is to get rid of lactic acid from

our muscles so we do not feel sore or have muscle fatigue. An effect of not cooling down

properly is Delayed Onset of Muscle Soreness (also known as DOMS). If this occurs then

athletes need to rest after activity to allow muscles to feel better.

Effective cool down example

An effective cool down:

Reduce heart rate- Jogging, side stepping then walking

Stretch- Static (hold the position) stretching held for at least 30 seconds at a point of

tension

Hydrate and Refuel- Drink water and eat high protein food such as a banana

EPOC

Many athletes use cold conditions such as ice baths to help them recover quickly from

intense activity. The cold encourages blood flow to get to deep tissue in the body. This

helps to get rid of waste products (lactic acid) in the muscles to prevent muscle soreness

and fatigue. This process is known as EPOC.

Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption

TASK: Using the above information, make 2 revision cards. If you do not have revision

cards at home, you can make some using paper. There are some examples of revision

cards below.

Card 1- Why it is important to cool

down.

Card 2- Cool down examples and

EPOC.

Only add key information. Use

bullet points or spider webs/

images to display the information.

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EBC

Why do religions exist?

• Religion has been an important part of history

• Most religions claim their teachings have existed since

the beginning of the world.

• Not everyone believes in a religion or are religious it

plays an important part of many people’s lives.

• The main six religions of the world are Christianity,

Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism.

What are the Abrahamic religions?

• Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all Abrahamic religions this means that they all

share the same Prophet (a person who very important and influential) of Abraham.

• Abrahamic religions only believe in one God.

• When a religion believes in one God it is called a Monotheist religion. Mono meaning

one.

• The Abrahamic religions came from roughly the same area of the world, in the Middle

East around the countries of Palestine, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

What are the other religions of the world?

• The other three main religions are Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism.

• Hinduism came from India and is one of the oldest religions in the world, nearly 5,000

years ago.

• Hindus worship many gods. This makes Hinduism a polytheist religion. Poly meaning

many.

• Buddhism came from India 2,500 years ago. It is a very important religion in many

different Asian countries.

• Sikhism is one of the world youngest religions and was founded nearly 500 years

ago.

• The Sikh religion also came from India and has a following 20 million people. Sikhism

believes in one God, making it a monotheist religion.

Activities

Answer these questions in full sentences.

1. What are the main six religions?

2. Name the Abrahamic religions.

3. What does Monotheist mean? Name the religions that are Monotheist

4. What does Polytheistic mean? Name the religion that is Polytheist.

Think: What religious buildings can you see in your local area? What religion do they

belong to?

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Drama: Mask and Mime

MASK

• When wearing a mask you must not

speak!

• Mask is a visual form of theatre.

• Communication is made through

the body.

• You should share your actions with

the audience when wearing a

mask!

MIME

• Mime is silent!

• Mime involves acting using only

movements, gestures and facial

expressions.

• Mime flourished in France and a

great tradition of French mimes

soon followed.

• One of the most famous French

mimes was Marcel Marceau. His

character, Bip, wore a short

coat and a top hat with a

flower…Marceau’s work was

also influenced by early silent

film stars, such as Charlie Chaplin.