Victorians | Blackburn Primary

After researching the equipment that was used to care for our clothes in the Victorian Age, ASD1 had a go at doing the wash the Victorian way.

First of all we hung out a washing line in the playground. We then filled a basin with hot water (luckily we had a hot tap and didn’t have to heat up our water on the stove). We had a washboard and bar of soap which we all tried out, but found that those stubborn stains were still there! (No fancy washing powder either!) It was hard to wring out the wet clothes before we used old fashioned “dolly” pegs to hang them up.

Our next Victorian experience involved imagining what it would be like to have no shoes to wear – this was a fact of life for many Victorian children. Then we took off our shoes and tried walking on some different surfaces in school, including sensory stepping stones with very different surfaces on them. We agreed that it was fine on all the smooth surfaces inside the building, however it felt very different on the freezing, metal fire escape – that was so cold!

We all put our shoes back on to walk to the sensory garden where pupils were invited to try to walk on some of the surfaces in their bare feet, but only if they wanted. Everyone had a go, some even trying to walk on our stony path (ouch!) but the grass was so frosty it even felt too cold to walk bare foot for long.
The verdict? We think we prefer to have our shoes and socks on outside!

It’s that time in a new term when we have to think about a new topic and how to introduce it.

This time ASD1 did not have a mystery box, but a Wonder Bag with six things in it. Firstly these were to be felt in the bag (not looked at) and for the pupil doing the feeling to guess what it might be. Then we looked at the object, described it and then tried to think what connection it might have to our yet unnamed context for learning.

Item number 1
This was described as soft, squishy, white, round, a cylinder and we use it in our house.
Item number 2
This was smooth, hard, cold, metal and made a great pop-up sound. We also use this in the house.
Item number 3
Smooth, hard, it has buttons, phone home, dial 999 it’s an emergency….
Another thing we use at home, but what is the connection?
Item number 4
Pirates use this! It is round, I can see you! We don’t really use this at home and we still couldn’t see a connection.
Item number 5
Smooth, cold, funny shape, metal, glass, don’t break it! It’s another household object.
Item number 6
This was tiny, paper, sticky, square, not square, it’s Christmas! Although we agreed that it’s something people use this was not the connection.

We talked about how each of these things looked very different when Miss Carson was young and even more different when her Grandparents were young. Were these things invented long ago? Now we were getting there! With a choice of the 2000s, 1900s or 1800s the pupils agreed that these things might have been invented in the 1800s – which was correct. Did you know that all of our objects were first invented in the Victorian Age?

Over most of this term ASD1 are going to look at what life was like for a child in the Victorian age and what differences and similarities there might be between then and now.

Just think when you use any of these items that they were invented in the time of Queen Victoria (1837 – 1901)!

Victorian experiences.

Only Connect…