Egyptian Project 2

In the lead up to the dig the children had a lesson to introduce them to the local history and the story we were using as the reason for the day. They were also given some basic information about archaeology and constructed a grid to use in their investigations. A letter also went home so children could come dressed for their parts on the day.

Grid used to record finds.

During the preparations the children from year 6 found a number of objects in the ground but to ensure the children kept focus these and some other objects were placed in the eighteen locations we were using to help with the time line activity at the end of the session. (It was amazing just how much the children found and how little this was of what had been planted!)

On the morning of the big dig ninety excited children came into the hall for their Time Team like briefing all dressed either as diggers or News Reporters.

Briefing for the day.

The weather couldn't have been better as we had our first really warm spring day of the year and the ground was soft enough to dig quite easily.

Members of the News Team checking equipment.

The dig quickly got under way as each team went to their designated area and began to dig. Excitement quickly grew as children came running over with objects they had found.

Setting up

Interviews live at the dig

Look what I found

And me!

More to follow in next post.

The Egyptian Project part 1

Year 4 have been learning about the Ancient Egyptians and to give the second half of the project an extra boost we planned an archaeology day in Forest School.

Prior to the event some research was done into the local history of the school grounds and the surrounding area. this helped to build a story to capture the children's imagination and give a real reason for the dig.

Fortunately the school is built in the grounds of Gilbertstone House.

     

The house was owned by Richard Tangye who was an engineer whose company helped Brunel launch the SS Great Eastern. With his brother he founded the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and was a great collector of relics. (see above)

We were also lucky to find a news story reporting the death of a gardener at Gilbertstone House. With a little bit of manipulation we were able to include him in our story.

Year 6 as part of their Forest School sessions were helping to make some changes to the site and kindly agreed to bury the mummy that was stolen by the gardener from Sir Richard Tangye. ( It was a little harder to to find facts for this but a coded Victorian diary was easily translated for our purposes - and you do have to ask why he died so suddenly?)

More in the next post.

Building Bridges

How do you cross a river with some sticks? Sadly we had no river but the challenge of building a bridge was great fun.

Children were very perceptive too. In the feedback sessions some questioned how they would do this if they could not cross the river whilst constructing the bridge.

    And this bridge just looked so fantastic you could imagine a troll was going to appear from below.

The Mud Pit

The mud pit has been a huge success, after extending the Forest School site we were able to open up a larger area to use. The old concrete stream provided a natural place to let water flow from (through a hose from a nearby tap). Children have been exploring ways to dam water, change its direction and making sculptures in the mud.
Here is some of the fun:-

And afterwards there is all the fun of a good hose down ready to return to class for the next lesson of the day.

Pyramids

The year 4 classes have extended their Egyptian project by trying to construct Forest School pyramids. We looked at knotting methods from both the Scouts and traditional Teepee construction to decide upon the best method for assembling our tripod teepees. And here are the results:-

Signs of Winter

Forest School has seen very few really cold days this year as winter has been much milder than last year but here are some pictures to celebrate the passing of the season as we begin to move into spring.