History Man workshops bring the past to life

Year 2: The Great Fire of London Workshop

Year 2 had a fabulous time on Monday afternoon with Mr Cadle, the History Man, who brought their learning on the Great Fire of London to life.  They were fascinated to see a model city of London in 1666 and were really interested to see Mr Cadle using the model to talk through the events of the fire, showing the children how much of London the fire actually destroyed.  The children really enjoyed dressing up in the clothes they would have worn in 1666 and they were amazed at how heavy some of these costumes felt to wear.  The children also enjoyed exploring other props from this period of time, such as mock weaponry and pottery.  Unfortunately, it was a very windy day on Monday, not unlike the weather in the first few days of the Great Fire of London, so we were unable to put out controlled fires outside using the implements they had in 1666 as we have done in previous years.  Nevertheless, this gave the children more time to explore the clothes and props, which they really enjoyed investigating.  Our huge thanks go to Mr Cadle, who always provides such an engaging and exciting workshop for the children.

Year 3: Ancient Egyptian Workshop 

Year 3 enjoyed an enthralling introduction to their forthcoming history topic on Ancient Egypt as they experienced lives as Ancient Egyptians.

They learnt about Egypt’s location and why, due to the extremely dry conditions and arid land, the River Nile was vital to everyday life, whether it was used for travel and transport, providing water for irrigating their crops, washing their clothes or for drinking.

Mr Cadle, the History Man brought the topic to life with his enthusiasm and exuberance.  The children found out about the Rosetta Stone and how it came to be that we were able to understand Ancient Egyptian writing, or ‘hieroglyphics’.  We were all fascinated to know that the word ‘hieroglyphics’ comes from the Ancient Greek, ‘hiero’ meaning ‘sacred’, or ‘holy’ and ‘glyph’ meaning ‘carving’. So ‘hieroglyph’ means ‘sacred carving’.

The pupils loved experiencing life as an Egyptian child, playing with a plethora of toys and games.  These included games similar to Snakes and Ladders, Jacks, Draughts and Noughts and Crosses.  The children were excited to see whether they could beat Mr Cadle in any of the games.  Other toys included wooden crocodiles and rag dolls, made from the leftover rags used for clothing.

One of the highlights for the children was making clay scarab beetles and ushabti figures.  Some of them thoroughly enjoyed dressing up as Ancient Egyptians.

One of the more gruesome occurrences in ancient Egypt was mummification and the children learnt how a mummy would have been wrapped, with each finger being individually wrapped and tied very carefully.  They’re looking forward to studying this further later in the term.