Figure 1.--.
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Figure 1.--. |
Teachers can not just lecture to prepschool age children. They love to hear stories, but some teachers are better story tellers than others. Teachers also engage the children with a variety of projects. Here the imagination is the limit. And eperienced teachers has learned what appeals to the children. While just beginning when we visited the schools, the computer and the internet has greatly added to the projects which can be assigned.
Mrs. Bridgford, our history teacher, decided that we should sork on a project to examine life in the mediaeval times. These were divided up into knights, castle, monasteries and meiaeval villages. Harris was on his own doing monasteries; Orton, Baber, and I were doing castles and also Capey, Grocott and Adams were doing castles. Lister, Cartwright and Shaw were doing mediaeval villages. Sherwell was doing monasteries. Our group doing knights, found out how a knight received his status and training to become a knight. We also found out what they had to know, such as being polite to ladies and using their weapns well. Another group doing castles found out how castles were built and how they canged in shape as the yeas went on. The monasteries were religious places where monks lived. The group doing villages found out different conquerors of Britain built their houses and roads. They also found out how people lived in an every day village. We found most of our information in the school library and th history room. We photocopied pictures which we thought would illustrate our projects.
Simon Davis, Form VR, The Wheasheaf (Pownall Hall), 1980.
We now have a museum about the Second World War in the History Room. Mr. Roberts asked people to bring in all sorts of things to do with the war. Gas masks were brought in, including one for babies with a hand air pump, which still works. There were bomb shells and one with a cut-away to show the inside. A grenade was brought in and a detinator which showed the cogs and workings inside. There is a newspaper from 1942. Lots of people brought in photographs from books. There were also cameras, medals, clothes, an offcer's cap, and a paratrooper's helmet. A particularly interesting itemis a transmitter. There is a fine collection of old coins dating back to the war. There was a defused bomb and a rattle that was used to warn people of a gs attack. There were some ration cards to show how much food people were allowed to have. One pupil at Queen's recorded an iterview with her grandpa, who explained what it was like to live in Exeter during the war.
William Bisson, Junior Wyvern Queen's College Junior School, 1989-90.
During history we did projects. The whole form was divided into small groups. Each group had a leader (I was a leader). The first person we did had to be British. Our group chose Sir Winston Churchill. We had to discover as much as we could about him and then write and draw things about him and his life. After each project we had to write a page essay about the person.
Richard Mosley, 10.5, The Bramcote Magazine, Autumn 1978
