Word for Wednesday: Pterodactyl

blog home

In this week’s Word for Wednesday we’ll be heading back in time to the Jurassic period…

Let’s look at the name of the prehistoric reptile and ancestor of the bird: Pterodactyl (pronounced ‘terro-dac-til’).

The word ‘pterodactyl’ is built from two components: ‘Pteron’ is Greek for wing and ‘Daktulos’ is Greek for finger. Wing-finger isn’t quite as catchy is it?

But did you know that the ‘pter’ part of the word is the same as in the word 'helicopter'? Helicopter is also a compound word from the Greek ‘Helix’ (spiral) and ‘Pteron’ (wing). Fascinating!

We challenge you to invent your own avian (flying thing!) using ‘ptero’ and another Greek word – tweet us your ideas @Spellzone

Hugh MacDermott

 

 


29 Jul 2015
blog home

One of the students has put in a huge amount of effort in completing Spellzone at least 3 times a week since his arrival with us in January. Looking at his scores after the latest GL testing, his standardised score has risen from 99 to 131. This is a truly phenomenal result. I just wanted to share the best result I have ever seen.

Terrie Penrose-Toms, Casterton College

read more...