Flamingo Class shared some amazing home learning projects this week, the culmination of their first half-term’s learning on The Age of Discoveries.
Our class knew it all! Children had produced all kinds of projects, including: maps of their routes from between 800-500 years ago, models of the ships used to circumnavigate the globe, a sailor’s diet on board an explorer’s ship, clothing from the period and tales of bravery and treachery!
We spent a lovely morning sharing our new knowledge with each other, our parents and children from other classes. Every new visitor shared in our excitement for this exciting topic and posed even more questions that need an answer.
Here is just a small sample of knowledge that was shared!
- Sailors lived off very strict rations that included meat, cheese and honey while-ever it lasted. The main part of their diet, however, was hardtack – a kind of ‘bread’ made from flour, salt and water that was baked four times to make sure it didn’t rot on the ship. It was hard, dry and must have hurt the sailors aching gums!
- Christopher Columbus, as we all know, was the first European to travel to the Caribbean. But did you know that he had approached all the royal families around Europe to gain support for his plan to sail ‘the other way’ around the world? Only the Spanish king & queen were interested, and so the first Caribbean islands and Central America were eventually ‘claimed’ for Spain. Perhaps, if another country had backed his trip, this part of the world would have spoken completely different languages…
- Marco Polo traveled to China by land, over 300 years before the Age of Discoveries explorers successfully found a route by boat. It took him 7 years to get to east Asia and when he got there, he stayed for 17 years! His famous book was eventually written in an Italian prison.
- Sir Francis Drake was the first Captain to successfully lead an expedition around the world and survive. He set off with many ships but only came back with one – a small ship called The Golden Hind.
- On really long voyages the water on board a ship would go bad. As an alternative, sailors would drink weak beer as it would last longer. However, when the beer started to run out they would top it up with pee! EEW!
Well done Flamingo Class for such wonderful independent learning and presentations!
