September 13, 2012
Year 3 students at St John’s Lutheran School in Kingaroy took a step back in time this week.
The “Back to 1800s Day” was the culmination of this term’s history unit: “Local Continuity and Change”.
Teachers Sonya Sutherland and Bec Mueller encouraged the children to dress in olden day clothes for the theme day. The children completed their morning classes using chalk boards with the school rules written on the blackboard for children to read as a whole class.
The Year 3 children are more accustomed to their lessons being presented on the interactive whiteboard but during this day they had all of their lessons from the blackboard.
They also completed drill lessons and rote learning, the old-fashioned way!
Children’s desks and chairs were placed in rows instead of the groups they usually work in.
Bec commented that she was finding the day “a bit long” because she was used to interacting with the children.
“Walking around the room in complete silence makes the day go very slowly! I much prefer the way our classrooms are organised now!” she said.
The students continued to play their part all day.
One student, Cooper, said the day was very different: “One of the rules said that girls couldn’t show their ankles. That was funny! We also played games like tiggy at lunchtime instead of climbing on the playground equipment. That was lots of fun. Things are a lot better now because we have technology and better medicines and we can afford more things for our classrooms.”
Lily said the day was very different: “For a start, it is darker because we had no lights on for the day and we couldn’t use the interactive whiteboard. I learnt that the rules were very strict and we had to sit up straight all day!”
The children played old-fashioned games in the afternoon. Some of the games included marbles, jacks, hopscotch and skipping, all of which the children enjoyed.
This term’s history unit focussed on how things have changed over time and whether some of the changes have been good or not.
As the children spent the school day in costume all day they had the opportunity to experience a different perspective on life in the past and how education was delivered.
“Today has given children a chance to experience how things have changed in schools. We stopped our role play throughout the day to discuss how the children were feeling about particular experiences,” Sonya said.
“We have looked at other areas including transport, medical, family life and education. When children experienced the day in period costumes and role play it develops their historical understanding of life in the olden days.”
[Photo: St John’s Lutheran School]
