Year 6 - Victorian Christmas

Did you know? Whilst cowboys and gunslingers were roaming the plains of the Wild West in the USA, the Age of Invention was booming in Victorian England. The children were fascinated to discover that these two famous periods of history occured concurrently.

As it is the festive period, we decided to dive into a mini topic: A Victorian Christmas.  

The children learnt about some of the Christmas traditions that were started in Victorian times that we still use today such as; Christmas crackers, cards, and trees. They delivered exceptional presentations about their learning to their classmates, other members of staff and even an important visitor - Mr Ward, the founder of Chatta. As well as sharing their learning verbally, Year 6 have created some beautiful festive magazine spreads. 

We have had so much fun creating our own Victorian Christmas crafts in class. Look out for the hand-made cross stitch Christmas cards and Christmas crackers (with handwritten jokes) the children will be bringing home. They even studied and practised a style of traditional Victorian handwriting - Copperplate Calligraphy - to write their messages. The children also created their own sheet of wrapping paper using printing techniques after studying the nature-inspired wallpaper created by Victorian artist and designer William Morris. 

This week Forest School was a frosty affair, with Polecat class enjoying make snow (or frost) angels, and looking for patterns in nature. They were fascinated by the shapes of the ice crystals!