Everyone can remember certain things from primary school, whether it be a single lesson or a full topic, but why do we remember them? We remember them because they were fun. I don’t remember learning how to subtract one number from another, other than I had a Heinemann workbook to help me. What I do remember is learning about World War 2 in P6.
I remember the World War 2 topic because we got involved, we got to have an election where we created political parties and voted for the party we liked the most based on the policies they created and debated over. We learned songs like Run Rabbit Run and Roll Out the Barrel. The teacher would play a bomb siren noise and we would hide under the table. We got to feel like we were taken back in time to the war.
Thinking back to this topic, I have bits I would love to magpie, bits I would like to make my own, and bits that I would like to add to make the topic even better. This topic is one that has inspired me, and my teaching, and I would love to have this impact on the children I teach when I have my own classes.
Thanks for sharing this Danielle! It is interesting that there are things you would ‘magpie’ (an essential skill in teaching) and things you would change about the WW2 project. I am also interested in the ‘fun’ comment – does learning always have to be fun to be memorable?