Yesterday, Grasshoppers went on their class trip to Shrewsbury Museum & Art Gallery. The children took part in a Great Fire of London workshop in the morning, led by our learning officer, Rose.
The children created a timeline of the events and dressed up as some of the key people, including Samuel Pepys, Thomas Farrinor, Thomas Bloodworth and King Charles II.
They took part in four activities: Using a quill and ink to write, as Samuel Pepys did in his diary. Making a pomander using herbs and spices, making leather goods by threading wool and strips of leather and constructing a large Tudor house, using wooden frames and making the walls by weaving thin canes between wooden poles.
We also did a treasure hunt to find precious items that people would have tried to save in the fire.
After lunch, we went on a guided walk around the town to look at the Tudor buildings. We looked out for pegs that joined the beams together and carpenters’ marks on the wooden beams. We saw hooks that shop owners would have hung their produce from and the decorative patterns that meant the owners of the building would have been rich. We looked at the names of the streets and worked out what might have been sold in the shops there. We also found some very narrow passages which showed us just how close the building were built and how the fire would have spread so easily.
We had a wonderful day, the children were so inquisitive and engaged and we learnt lots of new things.