Year Two took a lovely scenic walk up to our local church at Owston to complete our first case study in Christianity. Along the way we ensured we were stewards of our local area and collected litter, we were praised by the public for our lovely manners and care to our community. When we arrived at the church we were excited to explore the grounds and noticed lots of old artefacts which dated back to 1086, Owston Church we discovered was also mentioned in the Doomsday Book. A fantastic piece of history, right on our doorstep!
During this case study we are learning about the Egyptians. We have learnt about who they were and recalled key dates. When we were being historians, in our research we soon discovered that the River Nile was extremely important to the Egyptians as they used it for so many different things: helping to grow crops, fresh water, fishing and transporting goods. Because of the River Nile, the Egyptians were successful farmers and were able to grow a variety of foods which they ate to keep themselves healthy. We then compared childhood today to that of Ancient Egypt and experienced what they did for fun; below are some pictures of board games we created inspired my the Egyptians. We further learnt that the Egyptians believed that if they led a healthy lifestyle in this life, this would then mean they would also live a healthy and a good life in the afterlife. Hence, why the Egyptians placed such an importance on having a healthy lifestyle. Despite the Ancient Egyptians living over 5000 years ago, they were also the first to really look into medicine and began to investigate how bodies worked and how best to look after them. They created medicines, gave massages, performed surgery and used honey for its healing properties and even made toothpaste. We also learnt about the process of mummification and how they took great care in preparing bodies for the afterlife.
Today we continued to be historians, exploring our village of Carcroft. We went on a local walk to see all of the buildings that have changed over time, we had a tick list to find – DFS (which used to be an old pub), Iceland (which used to be a picture house), Coffee corner (Which used to be a chapel) and the old auction room (which used to be a farriers). We noticed and wondered about how any why these buildings changed. Leo suggested that the more people lived in Carcroft so more shops were needed like Iceland and Asda.
We also visited the memorial wheel and did some sketches of it.
On the way back to school we noticed a very peculiar tree, we became scientists and investigated this, it was the workings of the processionary moth.
Today we went on a local walk around Carcroft to see all of the buildings that have changed over time, we had a tick list to find – DFS (which used to be a furniture shop), Iceland (which used to be a picture house), Coffee corner (Which used to be a chapel) and the old auction room.
We also visited the memorial wheel and did some sketches of it.
As we came towards the end of our history case study last week, we consolidated out learning on the process taken to make chocolate. Then we had an opportunity to look at the working conditions before fair trade and after fair trade. We then worked together to sort a range of statements into fair and unfair. We were surprised to see there were a lot more unfair than fair. Finally, we conducted a conscious alley, where we were asked to debate a side of the argument. We really enjoyed this activity.
In expedition, we looked at the process a cacao been has to go through to become chocolate. We were surprised to find out there were lots of different stages of the process: harvest, fermentation, drying, roasting, winnowing, grinding, conching and tempering. We sorting the names of the process, with the correct description and picture. We then sorted at fair or unfair statements. After this, we did a conscious alley where we dug a little deeper into whether we thought it was fair or unfair.
In our expedition lesson today we compared the Egyptians diet to our diet today. We recapped primary and secondary sources then explored different pictures to explore an Egyptians way of life and their diet. We found out that the Egyptians were farmers, growing crops like wheat and barley for bread and beer along with fruit and vegetables. We explored the different types of fruit and vegetables that they would grow then thought about our lives today in Doncaster and what farmers grow today. We discussed importing and exporting food into and out of the UK and how this compares to the Egyptian way of life. Also we discussed the animals that were raised on farms in the Egyptian times and compared them to what we eat today. We thought about why the Egyptians may have eaten more ducks and geese linking to the River Nile and we discussed if we eat in the same way.
We moved onto thinking about the River Nile, using the learning from our previous lesson to support us. We thought about how the Egyptians caught fish, the size of the nets and what this tells us about the size of the fish in the River Nile. We discussed the advances in technology and machinery and how fishing hasn’t necessarily changed, but the methods of fishing have. Next we moved onto thinking about an Egyptian banquet and what would be included. We compared this back to a typical banquet today and the types of foods we would have. We then discussed the differences in food between the rich and poor people along with what they would drink… beer! This fascinated us!
We then had a go at producing our own Egyptian banquet…
We then thought about the following question… Do you think that the Ancient Egyptians were as healthy as people living in Britain today? We used the sentence starter below to help us.
I think that the Ancient Egyptians were / were not as healthy as people living in Britain today because …..
Finally we challenged our thinking a little further and discussed if we think it was mostly luck, skill or a combination of both that helped the Ancient Egyptians to eat so well? Our anchor chart shows our thoughts.
In history, we have been learning about where the cacao bean comes from and how it’s grown. We used QR codes to access some reading materials providing lots of information. We then had to use our skimming and scanning skills to help us locate the relevant information to answer questions.
We the looks at the differences between how the Maya processes cacao beans and how they’re processed now to keep up with the demand.
In expedition, Crew Hamill began looking at the process involved in making a chocolate bar out of a cacao bean. We identified the main steps in the process and matched these to a description of what each step involved, placing them in chronological order. We were then given a picture of each step that we had to also match up correctly. Following this, we looked at some facts about chocolate production, such as, children are used to collect the cacao beans and on average, cocoa farmers earn just 6% of the final value of a bar of chocolate. We had to decide whether these facts were fair or unfair and make a decision on what we thought overall. We were very surprised by how many unfair comments there were and couldn’t believe children were used for many of the steps.
