History of Rugby and the Rugby Ball

Rugby and Rugby Balls
This week in reading, the Lollipops group read a new school journal. In it they read an article called 'The First Rugby Ball'. Here are some of the facts they found. They recorded facts on a rugby ball shape and displayed on a group chart.

- Rugby school developed Rugby football from football and played this game according to Rugby rules

- Until 1870, rugby was played with a near spherical ball with an inner-tube made of a pig's bladder!

- William Webb Ellis was a schoolboy at Rugby School, who, bored with the slow pace of a football game, picked up the ball and ran with it, and created the game of rugby. Webb Ellis is the person the World Cup is named after.

- Richard Lindon started making rugby balls for Rugby School out of hand stitched four-panel, leather casings and pigs’ bladders.

- The rugby ball's distinctive shape is supposedly due to the pig’s bladder
Early balls were more plum-shaped than oval.

- The balls varied in size in the beginning depending upon how large the pig’s bladder was.

Smarties Reading Group

Ngaio, Jake, Riley and Dara have been researching Polar Bears. They are presenting their inquiry on an ActicInspire flip chart. They have had to learn lots of new skills. The flip charts look amazing. They have presented their learning in a new and different way. The flip charts contain lots of interactivity, such as web sites, and videos. They have inserted photos to back up their writing, using the pen tool, text tool and the floating keyboard. They have used colour to enhance presentation. They had a few teaching sessions on the basics of presenting a flipchart and after that it was just-in-time learning and lots of experimentation and problem-solving. Thesy are going to be teachers to another reading group. They will share them with other classes and their parents soon.