Nursery
In history we have been learning about things happening now and things that have happened before using their own life journeys. We do this by looking at our floor book, learning journey wall and memory box. This maps out the children's immediate history. We use stories to talk about similarities and differences between today and events in the past. The King's coronation developed a lot of conversation around celebrations we had seen like this before, such as the Queen's Jubilee.
Reception
During Autumn term we focused on the history in our own life time. We looked at photographs of ourselves as babies and discussed how we have changed. We thought about the things we can do now that we couldn't do before. We also looked at toys and how they change as we grow up.
During Spring term, we were learning all about space. We learnt about key individuals, such as Neil Armstrong and Tim Peake. We learnt about how they were significant and what they did. We compared and contrasted how space exploration has changed over the years, learning about space suits and rockets.
In Summer term we focused on holidays and how our holidays have changed over the years. We looked at photographs of holidays now and in the past and compared and contrasted with each other. We learned about how activities, clothes and food from holidays have changed over the years. We asked our grandparents and great-grandparents to help with our learning by sharing any memories they have of holidays.
Year 1
As part of the Year 1 history topic, they looked at the history and development of toys over time. By discussing and researching different toys they were able to see how children's experiences changed over the decades, and how different toys would have been for their Parents and Grandparents.
Why do we have castles?
We have linked our geography and history skills together by looking at where local castles are and identifying ones that we have visited. Some children even visited castles aboard in other countries. We learnt how castles were made, why they were made and who lived in them. We wrote fact files about castles and even made our own castles.
Year 2
Year 2 have a very exciting opportunity to learn about some local history as they discover all about the Great Fire of Nantwich. They visit the local museum and they also build, and then burn, their own Tudor houses.
Year 3
Year 3 have the opportunity to learn about prehistory, by looking at the stone age! They get to learn about what life may have been like for people during the stone age, and what they may have eaten, and they also link to their art by recreating cave paintings
We had our Ancient Egyptian day where we dressed up as Egyptian gods and goddesses, mummies and pharaohs. We took part in drama activities during our workshop, which enabled us to recap our subject knowledge. We learned lots of interesting facts about the discovery of Tutankhamum's toms by Howard Carter and about what they discovered in his tomb.
Year 4
Year 4 had an exciting opportunity to experience life as Roman merchants, experiencing different food stuffs that members of the Roman Empire would have transported across the continent. The children were surprised at the level of impact the Romans had on our modern diet, and the number of foodstuffs that wouldn't have been found in Britain originally.
Year 5
In history we have built upon our prior learning of the Romans in Year 4, by learning about what happened to the British Isles after the Romans left. Just why were they called the dark ages? We learned that this was both a metaphorical, and due to the possible impact of volcanic activity, literal!
We learned how the Anglo Saxons arrived (some would say invaded!) and settled in Britain, before they themselves had some visitors (invaders) in the form of the Vikings. We learning about the similarities and differences between the two cultures, as well as using a range of sources to discuss whether we felt the Vikings wholly deserved the reputation as bloodthirsty warriors.
Year 5 had several exciting experiences to support their historical learning. They had a survival day where they learned about how people would have fed themselves and their families historically, and they also had a Viking experience, where they learned about what the Anglo Saxons might have witnessed when they were introduced to Viking raiders in 792 AD.
As we move towards the end of Year 5, we are going to learn about the early Islamic civilisation, focusing on the development of Baghdad. Our final piece, we intend to use all our learning from the year to make a judgement on where we would rather live during the 'dark Ages'.
Year 6
As part of their cross curricular art topic, the Year 6's used techniques made famous by Amedeo Modigliani, and a portrait of Franciszek Brabander, to create their own portraits of inmates. They researched the terrible experiences of individuals in the concentration camps.