Today Lime class had a much anticipated trip to West Stow Anglo Saxon village. The journey together on board a coach being as much a part of the trip as the destination itself, we excitedly set off on a dry and warm(ish) morning, heading out through Essex to Suffolk.
The village is actually an experiment which recreates different theories about the construction of Anglo-Saxon houses and our guide for the day told us that part of the experiment was for her to occasionally test out the houses by living in them! The children loved exploring the site, asking and answering questions, looking for clues, gathering evidence and being historians for the day. The questions they had for our expert were really impressive and demonstrated depth of knowledge and understanding as well as effective application of their enquiry skills. We should all be rightfully proud!
In the afternoon we were able to explore the small museum on site which contained artefacts found at West Stow when the original village began to be excavated by archeologists in the 1950’s. The children were excited to discover that stone age people had also lived on the site, and this resulted in them recalling knowledge from their Autumn term topic about the Stone Age and animatedly discussing what they already knew, creating links with their prior learning!
Some outfits were available for dressing up which we all enjoyed thoroughly and the afternoon ended with an activity which involved handling and researching artefacts in small groups before reporting back to the class.
All in all a day which reinforced how important it is for the children to be involved in enrichment activities both on and off site in order to really bring their learning to life. Oh , and how much fun it always is for children to travel anywhere by coach!