to ‘ie’ and then add the ‘s’. The plural of ‘country’ is ‘countries’.
But if the word ending in a ‘y’ has a vowel before the ‘y’, we can just add an ‘s’: ‘donkey’ becomes ‘donkeys’.
In the next activity you will practise this new spelling rule.
1. Copy the following table into your workbook, filling in the correct spelling of the plural into the second column.
2. Rewrite the following story, correcting the spelling:
A farmer wished to have a photograph taken of himself, his children and all his animals. He arranged a day with the photografer. The family cleaned up the yard where the photo was to be taken and then all put on their best cloths to wait for him.
When he arrived, the wive and daughter brought out some tea and sandwichs on traies, while the farmer gathered all the animals. The cats were straies, so they did not want to include them. But the two huskys were to be included. There were chickens, pigs, cows, a goat and two small ponys.
It was difficult making all the animals stand still together. The dogs tried to help. When one of the chickens ran after a grashoper, they dashed after it. One dog caught it, but bit too hard, killing the poor thing. The other leapt about in excitement, knocking over the traies, breaking all the cups and saucers and plates. The farmer’s wive and daughter drew out their hankys and burst into tears. Two tragedys in one day were two much for them.
Follow instructions
You will often be given instructions in your life. If we do not follow instructions properly, things can go wrong. Think of building a model airplane, or assembling a tent, or cooking from a recipe. If we cannot read the instructions, none of these things will turn out the way they are supposed to.
In the next activity you will be given a chance to build a pinhole camera. You will need to follow the instructions carefully if you want it to work.
1. Did you know that our eyes actually see an object upside down, but that our brains turn it around? Discuss this with your partner.
2. You are going to build a pinhole camera. It will not really take photographs, but when you look through its “lens” you will see the object you are looking at upside down. Make sure you have all the necessary materials:
• A coffee can with a plastic lid
• A nail
• A hammer
• Wax paper
• Scissors
• A towel
3. Now follow the steps below to make your camera:
(a) Make a hole in the middle of the bottom of the can, using the nail and hammer.
(b) Cut a circle out of the plastic lid.
(c) Cut a square piece of wax paper, big enough to stick over the edges of the open end of the can.
(d) Place the wax paper over the open end of the can and put the plastic lid on firmly.
(e) Place the towel over your head and the coffee can which you must be holding with the wax paper end towards you. The towel must cover the edges of the can which has the nail hole, but not cover the nail hole itself.
(f) With the towel still in place, look through the wax paper end of your camera at an object. The object will appear to be upside down!
Make notes while reading
As you know, it is a good idea to make notes of a text that you need to study. To do this, you write down the main ideas. In the next activity you will practise doing this.
1. Read the following article carefully. You are going to be asked to make notes of it and to answer questions on it.
The history of photography
The word ‘photography’ comes from the Greek words ‘photos’ meaning ‘light’ and ‘graphien’ meaning ‘to draw’. So photography is about drawing light.
The first photograph was taken in 1825 by the French inventor Niépce. He produced his photos on a pewter plate covered with bitumen. Bitumen hardens when it is exposed to light, and the material that has not hardened can be washed away. The pewter is then polished, showing up a negative image which is coated with ink and then pressed on to paper.
Niépce then began experimenting with silver compounds and he and his partner Daguerre refined the silver process for producing photos. After Niépce died, Daguerre continued experimenting producing a method using silver on copper plate which he called the daguerreotype. A similar process is still used today in taking Polaroid photos.
Daguerreotypes became very popular. People who could afford to used to have their portraits painted by artists to preserve a likeness of themselves. The daguerreotype was not nearly so costly and so more and more people began to have their photos taken using this method.
It was only in 1888 that the Kodak camera was developed and was sold to users. Their slogan was ‘you press the button, we do the rest’. This meant that anyone could take photos and leave the development of them to the professionals.
Today, photography is known worldwide. It is a field that has many different areas of use.
2. The article has six paragraphs. Make a brief note of what each is about.
3. When were ordinary people able to take their own photos without having to go to a professional?
4. Make two lists of words that you know, one using ‘photo’ and the other using ‘graph’.
5. Make a list of all the areas in life today that use photography.
6. Look the following words up in a dictionary and then write them and their meanings into your personal spelling and vocabulary book: daguerreotype, pewter, bitumen, compound, refine, portrait.
7. What kind of text is this article? We can see right away that it is not a story, so what is it? Give
