School in the olden days

Thursday was "Switch it Off" day in school, which meant that we had to switch off anything in the classroom that used electricity. With no lights on and no whiteboard, it was a bit like being at school in the olden days, and that was exactly how our day at school turned out.

When we arrived, Mr Kennedy told us that children used to walk to school, so we began our day by walking 1km to school (in the yard). It was tough going, especially with our bags on our backs, but we all made it in on time. We had to run the last 50 metres though because the Headmaster was at the gate ringing the bell! Phew!!

Because we had no lights, we had to use candles so that we could see properly. We kept them in jars to make them safer. Here we are doing our work in the candlelight.



Old schools had blackboards instead of whiteboards, so Mr Kennedy used a blackboard for our Maths lesson. The children used to have black slate (a type of thin stone) and chalk, so we used our own version of black slates and chalk to do our sums.

 
 

Old schools didn't have radiators like we have nowadays, but instead they had an open fire in the classroom to keep warm. This meant that they needed fossil fuels like turf and coal to keep the fire going. We had a fire in our classroom today and we had to sent different people out to get a bag of coal and keep the fire going.

Often there was no toilet or running water in the classroom, so children in the olden days would have to use the toilet in an outside building or shed. They wouldn't have had a sink, so would have had to go to the well to get water in a bucket. Today we all did the same, by using the toilet in Miss Walshe's room, and washing our hands in a bucket of water (it was freezing!)

When they were writing, children in the olden days used quills, which are ink pens made from feathers. They dipped the quill in an ink well and wrote on a scroll. We made our very own quills using straws and colourful feathers, and they turned out great. We found it hard to write using the quills, maybe we need more practice! We all went home with a quill though so we can practice more at home if we like. Here we are using our quills.

 

 

 

In the olden days, the teacher had a pencil sharpener for the whole classroom, which worked by turning a handle. We had one in our classroom today too, but we found it hard to use it properly!

 



A couple of children misbehaved today, and had to write lines like in the olden days.

 

Here are a few examples of our finished scrolls.

 

When school was finished for the day, we had to walk home again (1km around the yard). We were feeling pretty tired at the end of a long school day in the olden days!!!!

On Friday we made old style lanterns which would have been used in the olden days for light.

 

Energy Week

This week is Energy Week in school, and we have been doing loads of exciting things relating to energy. On Wednesday afternoon we had a yard clean up, and each class had an area of the yard to clean up. We put on some plastic gloves and as you can see, we did some great work.

 

Here's a fun game you can play to learn about cutting down on the amount of energy we use

http://www.kidsenergyzone.com/games/activitiesdetail63.cfm?activityid=8


Miss Moriarty and Miss Walshe also organised a competition to create something new from recycled materials. There was a fantastic response and some amazing creations -  here are some of the efforts from our class.

 
 

The Titanic

27th November:

Today was our last day to learn about Titanic, so we watched a short video which summarised the whole story and the events of Titanic:

http://www.watchknowlearn.org/Video.aspx?VideoID=30640&CategoryID=13804

After that we used an ice cube container to examine how the Titanic sank. Finally, to finish off our work, it was time to have some fun. Mr Kennedy handed out lollipop sticks, play dough, tin foil, glue, corks, pipe cleaners and paper, and told us that we had to make our own boat or ship. The only rules were that it had to float and that it had to be able to carry a cargo (a small plastic pig!).

We had great fun putting our boats together in different ways. Mr Kennedy had a basin of water and we all tried out our boats to see if they could float and hold the cargo - some of us had to go back to the "ship yard" and re design our boats because they were letting in too much water! It was great fun all the same and we learned a lot about floating and sinking.

Keep an eye out for "Piggy" in the photos!

 

 

 

 
 

 



25th November:

Well, we have learned a lot about the Titanic over the last few weeks. Today we did a quiz and learned about the last hours of Titanic and how the ship that was called "unsinkable" actually sank.

Here is some of the work that we have done on the Titanic:

We made a list of the luggage people would have had with them on board the Titanic:

 

 

We wrote postcards to our friends from the Titanic:



We made a map of the journey the Titanic took:

 

 

 

 We wrote diary entries describing what it would have been like on board Titanic for her maiden voyage, and we made them look old by wiping them with wet teabags:

 

 

 

 And of course we drew our very own Titanics:



Here's what all of our hard work looks like when it is put together:

 

 

 

 


23rd November:

Here are some good clips of the Titanic sinking:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F35VY8BACIU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSGeskFzE0s


17th November:

On Friday we used pencil and pastels to draw our very own Titanics on A3 paper. We worked really hard as you can see and the results turned out great.

 
 

 


14th November: The Titanic is probably the most famous ship in history, and this month Second class are learning lots of interesting facts about the Titanic.

On Monday Mr Kennedy gave us each a boarding pass like this:
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and invited us all on board the Titanic. We learned that there were three different levels of passenger, First class, Second class and Third class. Mr Kennedy showed us some video footage

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlwojjLEr4c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Dso_pDrmPw

of what the Titanic looked like and we had to imagine what it would have been like to be one of the passengers. We also learned a cool trick about how to make our pages look like they are 100 hundred years old! (We used teabags and water, but shushhhh, don't tell anyone!). Here we are trying it out: