The Victorian Era is the period of time that Queen Victoria reigned. We have been learning about the Victorians but not just about Queen Victoria. We also learned about the types of homes, work life, inventions, education, transport, fashion and toys/games. It was a great topic for me and I learned lots of interesting facts.
This week we handed in our project about the Victorians and I hope my teacher Miss Orchant will enjoy mine.
Today after break our class got to experience what it was like to be in a Victorian classroom as our topic is the Victorians. Our teacher became a typical Victorian teacher for Maths and English.
Before break we had to put our water bottles at the side of the room. My friend and I thought that we would get to do something arty because we always do that before art. When we came back in from break the teacher had a measuring pole in her hand and then she started shouting that we needed to sit down in any seat and do it quickly. She banged the pole on a table and shouted: “From now on, you shall stand at the side of the table to answer a question. You must say: “Miss Orchant, the answer is ____ and then the answer!”
Everyone got a fright and quickly sat down in any seat.
On the table in front of us there was a slate and a thick piece of pencil lead on it. The first lesson was Maths and the maths questions were simple multiplication questions. When the teacher was asking the questions the pupil that was asked stood up and went over to the side of the desk and answered the question.
When it was my turn I went to the side of the table and said “The answer is 100… ” Then Miss Orchant shouted “DUNCE!” (because I forgot to add Miss Orchant at the beginning of my answer and I hesitated before I gave my answer) so I had to go to the front of the class and put on the DUNCE hat and stand facing the wall. Then because of that accident I missed the rest of the maths lesson!
The teacher shouted to grab a slate and lead and to write ‘Keepnotwhatisnotyours’ in a big long line with no spaces in between the words and also in old style letters. When another boy in the class had bad handwriting the teacher shouted “DUNCE” so he had to put on the DUNCE hat too.
When we finished writing the words out three times we needed to write ‘livepeacefullywhithallmen’ in the same way. That was the Victorian era classroom finished, it was scary!
On Wednesday we went on a class trip to Scotland Street School. When we arrived the first thing we did was get split up from the girls so the boys went right and then the girls went to the left. The next thing we had to do was go up the stairs and into an old fashioned changing room where we could hang up our coats and put on waistcoats and collars. After that a man told us about the safety procedures and then reminded us all that it was all acting. Finally we had to line up and the actress who was playing a Victorian teacher came out and told us in a very strict voice to be quiet and then told us where to sit and she said that we should always call her ma’am. The boys had to sit next to girls but some girls had to sit next to another girl because there was more girls than boys and I had to sit next to Pippa. The teacher then told us that we had to sit with our feet flat on the ground and our arms crossed under the table and to face the front.
The first lesson we did was Math. We had to recite our 2 to 5 times table like this: 2 nothings are nothing, 2 1s are 2, 2 2s are four etc and then she asked us individual multiplication questions. She drew a clock face on the black board and then wrote a number in the middle of it. We had to multiply the clock face number by the middle number. For example if 2 was in the middle of the clock and she pointed to 5, you would have to reply: 10 ma’am.
After that we did a quick test with Maths questions on a slate and most people only got 1 or 2 out of 5 because the questions were quite hard, 1 of the questions was: If I walk in a field and there is 10 humans , 1 horse and 1 dog how many legs were there in the field? I know you might think that is easy but the answer is actually 30 because you need to count your legs as well!
The next thing we did was handwriting and that was interesting because we got to use proper ink that we had to dip the pen in. What we had to do was write out the date in Victorian writing which is like script writing and it is all joined up then we had to write the alphabet using the Victorian style as well. Finally, we had to write out our name on the piece of paper in Victorian writing. When they had been handed in the teacher rang a bell and said that we were not in 1883 anymore, we were back in 2016!
She told us her name and then we discussed the similarities and differences between the Victorian class and a class in 2016. By the end of the day we had all learned something.
After the discussion the actress dressed up as a janitor of a school and were all of a sudden back in the Victorian times. The janitor did P.E with us and the P.E was very easy, all we had to do was touch our head then put our arms up in the air and then touch our shoulders and we had to repeat that several times. Once we had finished we got the chance to ask some questions.
We all really enjoyed the trip and I would definitely recommend going there!
This week we have been drawing silhouettes, looking at the timeline of Queen Victoria and even tricking each other with a disappearing coin trick. Silhouettes are pictures or drawings only taken of the side of a person’s face.
As you can see this girl’s fringe, lips, lashes, ponytail and her hair on top of her head all stick out, but you can’t see the features of her face.
We have also started our Victorians topic and we learned that Queen Victoria was the first person to get her picture taken by French photographer Alexander Bassano. Queen Victoria was also the first one to actually use the telephone, to be put to sleep with an anaesthetic, to have her voice recorded and she was the first person to be filmed. Queen Victoria was Queen on 1837 and she was born on 24th of May 1819 and died in 1901.
Our comprehension passage was called ‘Disappearing Coin Trick’. To make this you get 2 pieces of the same coloured card. Cut a hole in one and stick it onto a clear cup then get the other piece of card and place it upside down on the other piece of card. Place a coin underneath and see your audience get amused when covering the coin with the cup!
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