2 reports on the Roman Day at St Anne's RC Primary, November 2010  

Our Roman Day : written by Jake, Yr 3 from St Anne's RC Primary School, Audenshaw

 

 

On Tuesday Paul Devlin came to visit our class, he had come from Rome and Droylsden. We had to dress up as a Roman or a Celt. I dressed up as a Roman.

 

We learnt about the timeline and he showed us that bc meant before Christ, we had fun on the Timeline.

 

He showed us about medicine and he let us taste some treacle. It helped them if they were poorly. The red ant is medicine. If anyone had a wound they let them bite the sore and then they chopped the body off but the ant's jaws still bit. When the wound was better they had to cut the ant off with a knife or else it would be there forever. ( Step Back note: the juice from crushed red ants acts as an antiseptic while soldier ants were used as stitches). 

 

He showed us a stone and some kind of metal that made sparks and A plumb line. It made a straight line if they were making a house or something like that and he showed us some poisons.   He told us that Romulus killed Remus they were enemies.

 

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Yesterday Paul Devlin came to visit our class. He talked about lots of things. One of the things was about medicine. He told us there was a sling shot which the Roman soldiers used. Paul also showed us some scissors which we put in meat and we tried to get out some sling shot stones.

 

Paul also introduced poison to us and he said if you get some oleander twigs and some meat you can poison somebody. He had a list of poisonous plants and said we should have a list of poisonous plants in the secretary's office. ( Step Back note : the twigs were used as skewers through meat on a barbecue. As they got hot they released a poisonous sap which soaked into the meat )

                      PLEASE DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME,  IT REALLY DOES WORK  

 

During the morning Paul talked to us about what they ate and we tasted some food. We tasted 2 different types of bread, liquorish root and treacle which they used for sore throats. He talked about toys they would have played with. There was 5 Mens Morris, Mancala and a cup and ball game where you try to get the ball in the cup.

 

He also told us about the armour which they would have worn and what they used. Some of the class got up and put on helmets and held some swords.  Jacob got up and put on a real helmet and a real shield just like a proper centurion.  The other children got a shield but not a real one and tried to make the tortoise (which the Romans used in battle).

 

Then they sat down and we had a class photo and after the photo we had a pretend fight, Romans verses Celts.

 

Written by Orla, Year 3, St Anne's RC Primary School

 

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From Ben Jones, aged 10.  St George's C.E  Primary School, Hyde Cheshire.

The Day we Stepped Back in Time

 Mark and Paul from Step Back in Time came to our school, St George's Primary School, in Hyde last month. They brought lots of nice and special things such as Tudor medicines, Tudor food and Tudor clothes to dress up in. They also brought different pieces of armour, a battle axe, a sword, a dagger, and a massive broadsword. We were allowed to hold the weapons and put the armour on.

  Dressing up in armour 

We dressed up as Tudor Kings, Queens, Servants and Children. They told us how the Tudors lived and played us Tudor music. They showed us Tudor dances that we joined in with and we pretended to execute Henry's wives. 

      

We tasted some Tudor food, and strange bread that was called rye bread. Paul told us how mothers put grass or worms in the bread when they were short of food. It was nice once you tasted it and I didn't have any worms in mine. We had chicken legs, Tudor cheese, duck eggs, quail eggs and some very, very sweet balls that were special Tudor sweets. We learnt that sugar cost more than good meat so only the very rich people had sweets after a meal.

We learned about all the fantastic medicines the Tudors used and tasted things that they used as medicine like honey and black treacle. Paul showed us some teeth that had been dipped in cola and not cleaned and he told us how people had teeth out in those days. He made us all promise to clean our teeth every night.

 
The day before they came to school we had all written Tudor letters and they helped us seal them with wax as the Tudors did. He also showed us how to make sparks with flint and we all had a go. We made loads of sparks.  

 

 

 

 

 

    

                  6 of the girls had matching dresses.                       

They did a brilliant dance about the way Henry VIII's six wives died.   

            It was called 'Divorced beheaded died, divorced, beheaded survived'.

We learned about how Tudors built with wood and how stonemasons used more arches than anything else for strength.  If you get an egg and squeeze it on its sides it will break but if you squeeze the pointed ends, that are like arches, you will not be able to break it.  

     

We did a very good quiz before home time and we were given golden coins at the end of the day for our good behaviour.
 
We all had a brilliant day, thank you very much Paul and Mark.
 
Ben Jones, aged 10

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