Take your class on a journey back in time and meet former occupant of the cottages, Hannah Spray! Using dress-up and role play the children will help Hannah with her Victorian washday activity. They will also be encouraged to explore the similarities and differences between their homes today and the lock cottages during the Victorian period through rag-rug making and a kitchen object-handling activity!

During the spring/summer term, part of the session will focus on our Victorian kitchen garden, the use of herbs as medicine to clean and heal as well as flavour food and the ways in which Victorians expressed their feelings by giving each other certain flowers and herbs which each had symbolic meaning. Activities include creating ‘nosegays’, exploring the properties of flowers and herbs and writing potions and acrostic poems.

This session can be tailored for Key stage 1 and 2.

National Curriculum links:

Key Stage 1: Changes within living memory. Where appropriate, these should be used to reveal aspects of change in national life; Events beyond living memory that are significant nationally or globally; significant historical events, people and places in their own locality.

Key Stage 2: 6.1 Language and Literacy (spoken language, writing and vocabulary, speculating, hypothesising and exploring ideas); 6.2 English Spoken Language (speak clearly and convey ideas confidently, use discussion to probe and remedy misconceptions); Primary History (placing growing knowledge into different contexts, making links between local, regional, national history, and making links between short and long-term timescales).