In a recent history lesson, Tigers enjoyed taking part in a simulation activity to see how important trade was for Ancient Egypt to become powerful and how much it depended on being able to produce grain to feed its people and to export. We quickly learnt how dependent the Egyptians were on the success of the Nile flooding and that some years it was great, but other years it failed them.
On Monday, Year 1 and Year 2 had a very special visitor to talk about what life was like a long time ago.
Miss Thompson’s Nana came into school to talk about what her life and childhood was like when she was the same age as Year 1 and Year 2, which was 75 years ago!
Here, Penguins really enjoyed interviewing our special visitor and looking at some photos!
What a fantastic day we had at Jarrow Hall learning about Anglo Saxons. In the morning the children looked at Anglo Saxon farming and explored an Anglo Saxon village. In the afternoon they got to try on battle helmets and hold weapons before engaging in a battle of their own.
This term we have designed and created our very own Roman Helmets (‘Galea’). The children thoroughly enjoyed the process and took great care to measure, mark out and cut all the elements they needed before putting it all together. We also had great fun wearing them and pretending we were soldiers. We soon realised that marching at the same time and staying in formation was very difficult to do!
We have had an amazing visit from Simon, who works at Beamish Museum. He brought along many artefacts and told us so much interesting information all about coal mining, which will help us massively as this is our History topic this half term.
Our key question this half term has been Have Trains and Planes Shrank Our World? To round up our topic we had a debate on our opinion on the question.
Some of us thought they had because our world feels smaller since we can get to places much quicker but some of us thought our world actually feels bigger because there is so much of it to discover!
Fantastic debating skills!
We looked at different types of evidence in our migration topic linked to famine, war and persecution as we looked a push factors which contribute to people migrating. The children were task with explaining what type of evidence the sources were and what they tell us.
This week in Butterflies we read the story ‘Lost at the toy museum.’ We enjoyed exploring a selection of toys from the past. We looked a range of toys including marbles, a swinging man, a jack in the box and a wire run.
To consolidate our History knowledge and learning, we are creating power points with all of the facts we have learnt about WW1. We will present these to our class once they are complete.
We were lucky enough to invite visitors for the DLI into our classroom to help us with our WW1 topic for this half term. Firstly, the children were asked to create a timeline of the DLI before studying one soldier each from the DLI. The children used census information and reports to find out information about their families and what happened to them in the war. The class then took part in drills on the yard, where they marched as soldiers. On their, return to the classroom Year 6, studied artefacts related to each soldier, which included medals, revolvers, uniforms and shells. In groups, the class presented their findings about each soldier before taking a moment to reflect on what they had learnt in the session.
The children had a jam-packed day experiencing life in a pit colliery, the weather was beautiful and we saw so much of The Beamish Pitt Colliery. By the end of the day, the children earned their well deserved rest!
Year 4 thoroughly enjoyed their first day back after Easter! To follow up work on the Romans, they visited the Roman fort at Segedunum, right at the end of Hadrian’s Wall. They learned about life in the Roman army as well as taking part in some training practice! Climbing the tall tower above the remains of the Roman fort, the children were able to get a bird’s eye view of the its remains. They were able to compare it to a video clip showing change in the fort over time.
Following that, the children took a walk to discover the remains of one part of the wall. There they climbed a reconstruction of the wall to role play Roman soldiers defending their territory. The children particularly enjoyed their ‘battling’!
The class then returned to explore the remains of the fort before exploring the artefacts and activities of the museum at Segedunum.
All in all, it was a great class trip and the children were an absolute credit to our school.
As members of the Ancient Crime Squad, Year 3 interviewed Dr Mustafa Menshawy, an expert in Ancient Egyptian history, to help with our investigation into the mystery surrounding King Tutankhamen’s death. We will use our newfound knowledge to help write an explanation text in English to answer the key question: ‘Was King Tutankhamen killed?’
Year 5 have been researching the Mayans as a part of their History lesson.
Hedgehogs have been looking into what our living memories are and over the last weeks we have been looking into who was here before me? Last week we prepared some questions to ask a grandparent. This week we watched a video of the interview with Miss Thompson’s Grandparent and we listened to what life was like when she was younger.
Pupils were really surprised at how different thing were!
