Darwin's Dragons - Session 13 - Chapters 40 - 41 - Worksheet

During Session 13, which covers Chapters 40 and 41, the worksheet for "Darwin's Dragons" prompts students to engage in a variety of discussion questions and reading activities. The discussion questions explore characters' developments and motivations, such as Covington's recovery and Captain Fitzroy's concerns for him, as well as Darwin's gesture of buying Covington a new fiddle. Reading activities encourage students to continue creating a timeline of key events, listing flora and fauna from the book, analyzing Darwin's character, and dramatizing Covington's life aboard the Beagle. Additionally, students are tasked with reading comprehension exercises and grammar and punctuation work, focusing on conjunctions, the use of dashes, prefixes, and relative clauses.

The worksheet also offers a rich array of writing opportunities, including composing a diary entry from Darwin's perspective, a thank-you letter from Covington to Darwin, and a newspaper report detailing Covington's survival and rescue. Cross-curricular links are extensive, with connections to science topics such as plants, animals, rocks, habitats, evolution, and inheritance across various year groups. Computing activities include creating databases and webpages, while history lessons might cover Victorian England and human evolution. Geography tasks involve mapping the Beagle's voyage and understanding the world's physical and human characteristics. Other subjects such as Design and Technology, Physical Education, Religious Education, and Personal, Social, Health and Economic education are incorporated with creative and reflective activities, ranging from making ship's biscuits to discussing major religious creation stories and learning British Sign Language to understand deafness.