History
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.
In history today they were looking at the process on how to make chocolate from a cacao bean and then sequencing them in order.
As with our society, the Mayans had a hierarchy that consisted of The King or High Priest followed by the council (priesthood). Next there were the nobles who were the wealthiest and most powerful. This was followed by the merchants and Artisans who were known as commoners but they didn’t have as hard a life and had better jobs. Finally there were the commoners who were the lowest class and had no rights. They were also referred to as slaves.
We compared this with the hierarchy that we have in the country, our homes and even in school.
As with our previous lesson, we were able to do some additional reading because we had to get our information to help us understand each social class.
This week we have been exploring the Mayans and learning about what they were known for. This was a perfect opportunity to do some additional reading as we had lots of information to read so we could highlight the key information.
Once we had collected our information, we started to create posters that shared these facts.
We were surprised to learn that the Mayans had an 18 month calendar and they had various gods who were responsible for a range of things such as war, sun and rain.
In our first History lesson, we quickly recapped ordering the Mayan timeline. When we completed it during hook week, there was a misconception about how to order BC dates. Therefore, we had another check in to ensure we’d remembered how to accurately order BC and AD events.
Next time we worked together in small groups to match some vocabulary and their definitions.
Then we learned some facts about the Mayan so we could start to understand this ancient civilisation.
