Year 3 Rowling – Have you seen the Ridgeback dragon?
Well! What an exciting start to the day today!
Mrs Walker had an important message for us, Mrs Fennelly had sent a very important email saying that a neighbour had spotted something unusual in the playground over the weekend.
Here is the email we received from Mrs Fennelly.
Dear Year 3
I’m sorry to bother the start to your week, however I wondered if you could help me? One of the neighbours (in the houses that back onto the playground) contacted me over the weekend to explain that a strange creature had been seen near to the planters outside year 3. At first, they thought it was a cat, however, as the sun was shining brightly onto the creature, they spotted it was actually green in colour!! (I’ve never seen a green cat, so I assume it wasn’t a cat!)
The neighbour had a pair of binoculars and so manged to have a closer inspection. The creature was hiding in the bushes, then ran towards the tress by the train, jumping up and hiding in the branches. Amazingly, the neighbour spotted the creature crawling under the circular tables where it picked up a number of chess pieces that must have been left there from lunchtime! I’ve no idea why it needed those!! One thing I can imagine it did need was food, which probably explains why it was spotted rooting through the playground bins picking out apple cores and carrot ends in a hungry manner.
As you can imagine, I have been intrigued over the weekend and have completed some research of my own. I don’t think you’ll believe this but I think our playground creature is a Ridge-back dragon!!! It fits all of the features of a Ridge-back. Luckily, they are shy and harmless creatures- phew!!
Please could you look into this further for me and decide if you think it was a Ridge-back dragon or not. Could you also keep an eye out for it and let me know if you see it or sport any signs of it.
Many thanks in advance, I look forward to hearing how you get on with this mission I’ve set for you.
Mrs Fennelly
Well. Year 3 were definitely up for the challenge so we dashed outside to see if we could find any evidence of a ridgeback dragon. There were some unusual things on the playground. Some cones were half eaten, there were dents in the playground and the bushes were scorched!
We came back into the classroom and continued to research. We learnt that a ridgeback dragon is originally from Norway and usually lives in the mountains. We created some wanted posters to put up around school so that if there are any more sightings, we’ll be the first to know!
Luckily, some more information came through in the form of a video and some information about the dragon, which we later learned was called the Northampton Ridgeback. Interestingly, there are many different types of ridgeback. Additionally, one of their favourite things to do is to play chess!
Over the next few weeks we’ll be continuing to be dragonologists and endeavour to find out more information about the Northampton ridgeback dragon.
Watch this space!
Miss Gedney