History
Year 3 absolutely loved playing our very own historical version of the classic game Guess Who?
The children asked insightful questions to try and guess who their partner had chosen. It was a lovely activity that sparked great discussions about people who have lived throughout history.
As part of our hook into our new expedition, the children had the opportunity to design and create their own Roman coins out of clay. They carefully considered the symbols and designs used by the Romans and thought about what might be important to feature on their own coins.
KS2 have had an amazing day at Murton Park immersing themselves into life as Romans. We have made oil lamps, learnt Latin, joined the Roman Army and fought the Celts.
The children conducted themselves so well and we are extremely proud of them all.
Hopefully everything we have learned today we can build on over the course of our expedition as we learn more about the Romans and why they decided to come to Doncaster.
The first guiding question the children are going to investigate is “Not all hero’s wear capes. How can I be a hero in my local community?” The first hero which we’re looking at is a Fire Fighter. Crew Barber have started their first week in year 1 by getting creative in making their own Tudor style houses to replicate the buildings which caught alight in the Great Fire of London, we then set our houses on fire so we could see how quick the fire spread. After watching fire safety talks the children then chose to dress up and engage in role play during their outdoor breaktime, acting out scenarios and having a great time!
UKS2 were very proud to present their learning to their adults yesterday afternoon. After giving an introduction explaining all about our expedition titled: At The Coalface, the children explained what we had done during our case studies to answer our guiding question: How has the mining industry shaped communities?
Children then got to share their amazing final product – a lapbook that brought all of their hard work from this term together whilst showing off their fantastic artwork. Adults were able to take part in a gallery walk to view their child’s work and were also able to take part in other activites – looking through expedition books, taking part in a Kahoot quiz to test their mining knowledge and an opportunity to create some charcoal art of their own!
Thank you so much to everyone who attended and made it a lovely afternoon!
Crew Hamill and Crew Wilkinson were visited by an ex-miner who came to share his detailed experiences of working within the British coal mines. He shared moments of joy and camaraderie with his workers and stories of tragedy when accidents occurred. We were engrossed in his experiences and through this process, we developed a deeper understanding of how more modern mines operated and what a day in the life of a miner was like. Afterwards, the children had many prepared questions to ask to ensure that we got the most from the experience and allowed us to embed our understanding.
You can listen to the interview if you follow this QR code.
Crew Hamill deepened their understanding on the early conditions of the mine from last lesson by exploring the dangers that people faced due to these conditions. To begin with, we looked at some artefacts that would have been used within the mine (helmet, gloves, pickaxe etc.) and discussed what these told us about working in a mine (e.g you could hit your head, get blisters on your hands, be injured by the pickaxe). We then worked in mini crews to create freeze frames of some mining situations that all involved a danger. Can you guess what these are from our photos?
Following this, we worked in threes to conduct interviews in which one of us was a miner in a given scenario and the others asked questions about the dangers. You can see some of our interviews here:
To consolidate our learning, we created a ‘wall of dangers’ by each writing a danger on a brick.
During today’s lesson, Crew Hamill had the opportunity to experience a mining tunnel for themselves. Using tables and dark material, we recreated what a tunnel might look like. We turned out the lights to make things darker and played a coal mine soundscape to mimic the sounds of the mine. One at a time, we made our way through the tunnel, experiencing the dark, cramped and noisy conditions. We then had a small debrief explaining how we felt – lots of us were claustrophobic! Following this, we played true or false and moved to the side of the room that we felt was appropriate when presented with different facts about mining. If we agreed and thought they were true we went to one side, if we disagreed and thought they were false then we went to the other. To further demonstrate our learning, we read some fact sheets about life in the mine and created chotting sheets in mini crews that detailed the early conditions.
Crew Hamill have delved deeper into the mining industry and had a look at some of the main changes that have occurred since mining began. We worked in pairs to match the important events to a picture that illustrated them. Once we’d done this, we worked together to order them in chronological order. We discussed whether these changes were social, technological or political and discussed why these events were so important. For example, in the 1980s, lots of miners went on strike to fight for better pay.
As part of their expedition, Crew Hamill will be interviewing an ex miner in order to find out a little bit more about the experiences they had when working in the mines. In preparation for this, we worked in mini crews to chot some ideas for the questions we’d like to ask. We then worked as a crew to put our ideas together and generate a final list of questions which we will be asking on Friday.
