Children in Flamingo Class have been learning about how real historians find out about life in the past. We wondered how is it possible to know how Romans cleaned themselves. Or whether it is actually possible to know what a Roman kitchen looked like? Does anyone really understand how and why people celebrated Roman gods?
As part of our Theme Week activities, parents were invited to join us in undertaking a real archaeological dig, so that we might discover how all this is possible. One morning, we all set about finding evidence of a previously undiscovered Roman settlement right here in Provo!
A big thank you must go to all the parents who joined us for the morning. The activities consisted of a brief demonstration of the skills needed in excavating historical evidence. The children clearly knew more than they realised, and did a lot of the teaching themselves. Then, we headed outside to undertake Provo’s first Roman dig! Parents worked alongside their children to discover all kinds of lost artefacts together. The remaining time in the morning was spent documenting and sketching the evidence for further research later in the week.
Part of this research was the difficult task of identifying the many different coins that were discovered! We rubbed each coin before studying the markings on them. It turns out that Ancient Roman coins worked just like our newspapers do today – the pictures on them depicted the major headlines of the period for people throughout the Empire. We then set about creating our own versions, commemorating some truly great Emperors and their achievements.
