Clay Lane is inspired by educational materials created NL Clay, and used in English schools and homes from the 1920s to the 1960s. The Blog is a newsletter of recent additions and some selections from our archive, including brainteasers in grammar and vocabulary, and brief passages from history and literature.
You are welcome to ask for my help with any of the materials on Clay Lane. Drop me a line via email to: nicholas@claylane.uk.
Add Vowels
How many words can you make just by adding vowels to these consonants? See if you can get at least 8.
rms
Spinner
Make a sentence that uses ALL THREE of these words:
Gift. Biological. Finding.
These words are served randomly.
You can change e.g. go → went,
or quick → quickly.
At the end of the sixteenth century, the Dutch were Elizabeth I’s Protestant allies against Europe’s Catholic states and the cruel Inquisition. This made trade with South America and the Far East, where Spanish and Portuguese merchants were already established, a matter of bitter and bloody rivalry.
In William Langland’s dream-narrative ‘The Book of Piers the Ploughman’, we have seen Jesus Christ enter Jerusalem, and seen him crucified. But Lucifer and his devils are anxious. From their fastness in Hades, surrounded by the souls of the dead, they see a distant light; they double-bar the doors and plug every chink in the mortar but closer and closer it comes, until it stands before the very gates.
In ‘The Dream of the Rood’, Cynewulf (possibly the 8th century bishop of Lindisfarne) imagines the Cross of Christ finding voice and recounting the experiences that great Friday. Here, the Cross speaks of the Day of Judgment and the comfort and assurance the very thought of it brings to mankind even at that late hour.
Many colourful words and phrases come from past customs. Which common adjective is dictionary-writer Dr Johnson (1709-1784) talking about here?
— (5-5). In open sight; without artifice or trick. A figurative expression, borrowed from gamesters, — who, when they put their hands under the table, are changing their cards.
Above-board.
Read this little poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge out aloud. You will need to add (in your mind) lines of verse and suitable punctuation. Don’t forget such useful little things as dashes, exclamation marks and question marks. Hint: there are three stanzas.
if i had but two little wings and were a little feathery bird to you id fly my dear but thoughts like these are idle things and i stay here but in my sleep to you i fly im always with you in my sleep the world is all ones own and then one wakes and where am i all all alone sleep stays not though a monarch bids so i love to wake ere break of day for though my sleep be gone yet while tis dark one shuts ones lids and still dreams on
See below for the whole poem.
