Toucans were very lucky to be visited by The Freshwater Theatre Company to enjoy an interactive experience all about the Great Fire of London. The children took on roles of the different areas of Pudding Lane, where the fire started, to re-inact what happened through drama. Some were market traders, some worked in the bakery and some were actually the fire (with streamers!). They had great fun and it really brought their topic to life.

Karly became Samuel Pepys, Declan was the Mayor and James became King Charles II for the afternoon! The children had to keep explaining to our special visitor about modern day living as she had travelled to us, from 1666. She didn’t know what electricity was or even hand sanitiser!

Luckily, the children worked well as a team to extinguish the fire so all ended well. The children wrote about their experience afterwards – please have a look at the writing by Shriya, Reva and Elias…….along with all our photos of the afternoon too!

Mrs Parry
Year 2 Class Teacher

With the permission and help of his parents, Alex safely re-enacted where the Great Fire of London took place – at Farriner’s Bakery on Pudding Lane, in London. As you might see, it only took two and a half minutes to completely burn away. Fire spreads very quickly. Think back to when you made your fire safety posters – can you remember any rules and advice?

Do not try this at home unless an adult has agreed to help you with it all!

Toucans have been set the challenge of making Tudor Houses today, after learning how properties used to be built during the period of the Great Fire of London. The houses had second storeys that were wider than the lower floor which meant they were close together. They were built with timber and some had straw roofs. This all contributed to how quickly the fire spread. Shriya has made a brilliant model – well done!

Alex R’s model below.

Isla’s Tudor House model below.

Ryan’s Tudor House model below.

Alex S’s Tudor House model below.

Toucans have been really interested in our History study about Florence Nightingale. The children have placed events of Florence’s life in order on a timeline. Do you know what year she was born in? What year did she die?

The children have spent a lot of time finding out how hospitals were in Victorian times compared to now and also discovered what improvements she introduced. Toucans noticed how Florence looked very different to nurses we see nowadays and made some interesting comparisons. This knowledge enabled the class to write a letter to the Victorian government in role, as Florence. They were able to explain the living conditions and convey what equipment was needed.

Toucans have been using atlases to label countries on a map. Do you know which countries were involved in the Crimean War? Where was Scutari? Where is Ukraine?

Toucans have learnt about a very famous person called Florence Nightingale. She was born 200 years ago and was a nurse. She realised lots of germs were in hospitals and began to start cleaning them. She helped lots of injured soldiers in the Crimean War. When she returned she realised she had become very famous and opened a hospital called St Thomas’. She received lots of awards for her work. Toucans learnt some new vocabulary and found out the meaning. We have heard a lot about germs and infection recently. The children made links and realised why the new hospitals recently built have been named Nightingale – They have all been named after her! What facts can you remember about Florence Nightingale?

In our History lessons we have learnt all about Florence Nightingale. Today we did a quiz to finish the topic and found that we really have learnt a lot!

Today we learnt about Black History Month. We learnt that October celebrates all black people in History who have done wonderful things. We started learning about Mary Seacole by listening to the story of her life and drawing portraits.

This is what we have learnt so far:

George – She wanted to go to the Crimean War with Florence Nightingale.
Maya – She stood up for herself when people said she couldn’t help.
William – When they didn’t let her on the boat she bought her own ticket to travel to the Crimea and help.
Eason – Mary Seacole helped in the Crimean War.
Daisy B – She built her own hospital and called it the British Hotel.
Liam – She wanted to help so much that she just wouldn’t give up.
Her father was Scottish and her mother was Jamaican.

Today in History we investigated paintings of the Great Fire of London and had a group discussion. We shared our thoughts, feelings, opinions and everything we had learnt. We had some great ideas!

This afternoon Toucans had a wonderful workshop all about the Great Fire of London.

This is what we learnt:

This is what we enjoyed:
Ryan – I enjoyed being the King of London!
Millie – I enjoyed being a spark and flames of fire and dancing and spreading the fire around.
Havana – I liked being a worker. I was a vegetable seller.
Blessed – I enjoyed running around with the fire.
Kezie – I enjoyed being the fire from the oven and being a horse.
Scarlet – I enjoyed spreading the fire in a circle.
Lily W – I enjoyed doing ring-a-roses.
Ali – I enjoyed pretending to be a rat!
Ibrahim – I enjoyed trying to put the fire out.

This afternoon Year 2 had a very exciting experience. A visitor from Freshwater Theatre Group came to work with us about our History topic of the Great Fire of London. Mary was a real eyewitness! She told us she was there at the time of the fire and took us on a Drama journey through the story of how the fire happened. We learnt it happened in 1666 when all the houses in London were built very close together. We got into two lines to become the houses on the streets of London. We learnt one of the reasons why the fire spread so quickly was because the sparks leapt from one house to the next.

The fire started with one small spark in a bakery on Pudding Lane and was soon spreading all over London. Callum C acted as Samuel Pepys and other children were his maids. They woke him up to tell him all about the fire and he was shocked! Then some other children joined in with the Drama and acted out what might have happened when the fire started. They had some excellent ideas for what the people might have said!

We followed Mary around the streets of London and discovered how devastating the effects of the fire were. We saw all the houses on fire, the streets were full of people trying to escape and even the churches were burning. We tried to escape the fire by getting on a boat – the cheeky man even asked us to pay! The fire burnt for four whole days until the blew the houses up to make fire breaks.

After the fire King Charles (Keelie) and the Lord Mayor (Leo) were asked about their plans to rebuild London. We gave them some good advice:

What a wonderful workshop!

What a wonderful workshop!

October is Black History month so Year 2 have been learning more about what it is and why it’s important. We started our lesson by thinking of all the famous, talented black people we know. We thought of loads!

In our History lessons this week we have learnt about Florence Nightingale. Today we focused on another famous nurse who was around at the same time called Mary Seacole. We learnt that she wanted to help injured soldiers in the Crimean War the same as Florence Nightingale but the doctors wouldn’t let her because of the colour of her skin. We were so shocked at this and very pleased that it doesn’t happen anymore. Mary Seacole decided she was going to help anyway and bought her own ticket to get there and help. She ended up helping hundreds of soldiers.

We made our own fact files about Mary Seacole and drew portraits of her to help us to remember how important she was.

Today we started our History topic. We are learning about a famous person from the past – Florence Nightingale. First we talked about how we learn about the past and decided there are lots of different ways. Today we watched a video about Florence Nightingale’s life to find out why she was famous. We learnt lots of facts – look at our mind map.

Next we used the computers to play a game where we helped Florence to clean up the hospital. We also learnt lots of extra facts. The game we used is on the BBC website so have a look at home if you are interested.

In our History lesson today we started to think about how we find out about History. We know the story of the Great Fire of London because we have been learning about it and had a wonderful workshop. We started to think about how that History has been passed from 1666 to us in 2017. We played a game to learn more about sources of History:

http://www.fireoflondon.org.uk/game/

It was very useful. We already knew about Samuel Pepys’ diary and how that explained how the fire happened. We also knew that people painted pictures of the fire because they didn’t have cameras to take photographs. However, we didn’t know that much about artefacts and eye witness accounts though so the game was very good at explaining that to us.

We then wrote some sentences explaining what we had learnt.

This afternoon Year 2 had a very exciting experience. A visitor from Freshwater Theatre Group came to work with us about our History topic of the Great Fire of London. First she told us some facts about the fire and then we played a game. We had to follow instructions to make different shapes relating to the fire. We then got into two lines to become the houses on the streets of London. We learnt they were all very close together and that was one of the reasons why the fire spread so quickly.

The fire started with one small spark in a bakery on Pudding Lane and was soon spreading all over London. Yusif acted as Samuel Pepys and other children were his maids. They woke him up to tell him all about the fire and he was shocked! Then some other children joined in with the Drama and acted out what might have happened when the fire started.

Our favourite part was when we pretended we were the fire and leapt from house to house.

Here are some more facts we learnt: