Worksheets for teachers

Shiel­ings Theme I Cul­tur­al her­it­age and his­tory Activities

Draw a map with pic­tures show­ing the dif­fer­ent activ­it­ies that people might be engaged in dur­ing sum­mer at the shiel­ings or back in the vil­lage. Dis­cuss how you would pre­pare for liv­ing at the shiel­ing for the sum­mer what would you take with you, what would you miss the most from the ​‘win­ter­town’? Wild camp at a shiel­ing. Make but­ter using a jam jar and milk While you work, sing a but­ter churn­ing song such as ​‘Thig, a’ Chuin­neag, Thig’ (‘Come, But­ter, Come’) www​.gaol​na​ofa​.org/ lib­rar­y/music/thig-a-chuin­neag-thig-come-but­ter-come/ Reasearch and cre­ate your own shiel­ing songs and poems How does this form of ​‘enter­tain­ment’ dif­fer from today? Make small scale mod­els of shiel­ings from twigs, stones and oth­er nat­ur­al mater­i­als. Rush dip candles Chil­dren gathered rushes to use as wicks for rush dip candles or cruis­ie lamps. The rushes were soaked in water to soften the out­er green skin. The skin was then peeled back to reveal the white pith. After dry­ing, the ​‘wicks’ were dipped in anim­al fat, or fish oil on the coast, dried again and could then be lit to provide light in the sheil­ing. They burned best when held at 45 degrees. Have a go strip­ping back the skin to reveal the pith. It was a very fiddly job so best done with little fin­gers! www​.cairngorms​.co​.uk

Old Town­ships

Vis­it High­land Folk Museum to see a recon­struc­tion of a sev­en­teenth cen­tury township.

Place name detect­ives Choose a town or vil­lage in the Nation­al Park and try to work out how it got its name. For help, look at old maps and a Gael­ic dic­tion­ary! Deer Trap­ping / Elrigs

Make an elrig and re-enact a hunt How will you organ­ise yourselves as a group? How can you stop the deer escaping?

Look out for Elrig on OS maps Some­times also spelt Elrick, Eileirig or lolairig.

Cattle raid­ing / Cateran

Find or cre­ate a Cat­er­an trail Use maps to identi­fy a route for cattle drov­ing. Think about the route. What land would be easy to drive hun­dreds of cattle through? Where might you struggle? Where could you hide a hun­dred cattle? What would you eat? Where would you sleep? You can do this activ­ity in a Nation­al Park or using more famil­i­ar land near to you at home.

Watch videos of cattle drov­ing on You­tube What skills are needed to drive cattle? Why does cattle drov­ing no longer take place in Scot­land? Why do people still drove in Amer­ica and Australia?

Rob Roy – the most fam­ous of the Clan Gregor Rob Roy Mac­gregor was born in 1671 in Glengyle, on the west­ern shores of Loch Kat­rine. This was a drove route allow­ing the move­ment of cattle from Loch Lomond. He is best known as a cattle raid­er but was also a sol­dier. He looked after oth­er people’s cattle in return for a pay­ment, but ended up an out­law. In 1693, he mar­ried Mary Helen Mac­Gregor of Comar. She came from a farm that is still marked on OS maps today, between Ben Lomond and Loch Ark­let. Rob Roy’s grave­stone is in the buri­al ground of Balquid­der Church.

Can you find all the map ref­er­ences to Rob Roy’s life? Walk along the Rob Roy Way www​.lochlomond​-trossachs​.org/​t​h​i​n​g​s​-​t​o-do/ walk­ing/long-dis­tance-routes/rob-roy-way/ www​.lochlomond​-trossachs​.org

Theme 2 Wild­life and Biod­iversity Activities

Endangered anim­als Find a place name for an anim­al that is endangered or extinct, eg wolf, eagle, caper­cail­lie, crane, Scot­tish wildcat.

Write a poem or story about that anim­al and the place where its name is found.

Think about the hab­it­ats around the place name: are there rocks, moun­tains, rivers, forests or towns? Why might the anim­al have been found there? How has the place has changed over the past hun­dred or thou­sand years? Why might the anim­al have become rare, endangered, or extinct?

Map your play­ground Walk around your play­ground pay­ing very close atten­tion to all the plants and anim­als you find there.

Focus on par­tic­u­lar spe­cies. How many Scots pines, oak, ash, or oth­er trees do you have? What types of bird vis­it your play­ground? Are there any nests? What flower spe­cies do you have? Where do they grow? Where are you most likely to find wood­lice, centi­pedes, lady­birds or oth­er wee beasties?

Draw a map of your play­ground and label it to show where you find these plants and anim­als. Make place names for your play­ground. For example: ​‘the pic­nic bench of the wasps’; ​‘the tele­graph wire of the rooks’; ​‘centi­pede stone’. www​.cairngorms​.co​.uk

Explore Scotland’s Celt­ic rain­forests The Atlantic oak­woods of Loch Lomond & The Trossachs Nation­al Park are magic­al places. High rain­fall and warm cli­mates provide per­fect con­di­tions for plants such as mosses, lichens and liv­er­worts to grow and thrive. Go for a wood­land walk and ima­gine liv­ing among the mosses and lichen. Take a hand lens and explore this magic­al micro­scop­ic world!

To find out more about our Celt­ic rain­forests and where to find them, vis­it: www.plantlife. org​.uk/​s​c​o​t​l​a​n​d​/​o​u​r​-​work- scot­land/­pro­jects-scot­land/ celtic-rainforests

Theme 3 Land­scape Fea­tures and Hab­it­ats Activities

Name your land­scape Study a hilly land­scape from a view­point or a pho­to­graph. Look at the shapes of the hills. Are they round, rocky, steep, short, or very tall? Select the best fit­ting gen­er­ic hill word from the table on page 26 of the resource book­let. Then look at the char­ac­ter of the hill: what col­our is it? Add this to your new hill name. For example: ​“I see a small roun­ded hill that is covered in dull yel­low- green grass. I name it Tom (round hil­lock) Odhar (khaki):Tom Odhar.”

Land­scape sketch­ing You don’t need to be a good artist to try land­scape sketch­ing! Make a frame out of card­board and insert a piece of acet­ate so it looks like a pic­ture frame. Hold the frame up to a land­scape view. Sketch the land­scape fea­tures onto the lam­in­ate with pens. Annot­ate your sketch to show fea­tures such as moun­tains, woods or trees. Give these fea­tures Gael­ic or Scots names.

Cre­ate your own Nation­al Park A good classroom activ­ity is to cre­ate your own mini Nation­al Park. Draw a Nation­al Park bound­ary onto a large piece of paper, then cre­ate your own land­scape using recycled objects and mater­i­als. Let your ima­gin­a­tion run wild – make moun­tains, glens, rivers, lochs, farm­land and wood­land. You could even go back to the times when there were town­ships and shiel­ings. Give your Nation­al Park a Gael­ic name, and name set­tle­ments in your Park using the descript­ive words above. Intro­duce your Nation­al Park to friends using your Gael­ic names and see if they can work out what they mean. www​.lochlomond​-trossachs​.org

Theme 4 Folk­lore, Songs, and Stor­ies Activities

Tra­di­tion­al songs Listen to tra­di­tion­al Scot­tish folk songs and bal­lads. There are examples in Gael­ic, Scots and Dor­ic avail­able online. Learn to play or sing the tunes. What are com­mon themes in the songs? What sorts of places are sung about?

Web­sites with audio record­ings Digit­al Archive for Scot­tish Gael­ic www​.dasg​.ac​.uk/​a​u​d​i​o​/​a​b​o​u​t​/​c​rc/en

Tobar an Dualchais/​Kist o Riches www​.tobarandu​al​chais​.co​.uk/en/ and search for ​‘bal­lad’

Scots Lan­guage www​.scotslan​guage​.com/​p​ages/ view/​id/​23

Cog­nit­ive maps Cog­nit­ive maps are men­tal rep­res­ent­a­tions of phys­ic­al loc­a­tions, used by people and anim­als to help us to find our way by recall­ing import­ant envir­on­ment fea­tures. A cog­nit­ive map can be very dif­fer­ent from the actu­al place it rep­res­ents, because the indi­vidu­al who makes the map focuses on the fea­tures that are import­ant to them.

The poem ​‘Hal­laig’ by Sor­ley Maclean is an inter­est­ing example of a cog­nit­ive map. Read the poem and explore, how does he cap­ture the spir­it of Hal­laig? What land­scape fea­tures does he describe? How does he link these fea­tures? Which people and anim­als does he describe jour­ney­ing between the sites?

Your turn Think of a place you know well. This might be a small area like your home, school or play­ground. Or you might choose a lar­ger area like a forest, town, or Nation­al Park.

List import­ant fea­tures in the place you have chosen. Make sure each fea­ture has a dis­tinct­ive name. For example, if you are writ­ing about a tree, try ​‘the wee Scots pine in the bog’.

Once you have a list of import­ant fea­tures in your place, describe a jour­ney between them. You might write from your own per­spect­ive, or ima­gine that you are an anim­al, a bird, or a his­tor­ic­al per­son. You could write a story, a poem or an essay.

Theme 5 Tra­di­tion­al Routes Activities

Cre­ate a trade route Use your play­ground / loc­al green space to set up a trade route. What goods (real or ima­gin­ary) will you be trans­port­ing? In plan­ning your route, what needs to be con­sidered? For example, modes of trans­port, land­scape, poten­tial hazards.

www​.cairngorms​.co​.uk www​.lochlomond​-trossachs​.org