The History Van - Ancient Greeks

 On Tuesday afternoon, Giraffes enjoyed workshops with The History Van. The session focused on 3 historical figures whose ideas and inventions still impact our life today. It was certainly not just a History session as so much was woven in from across the curriculum. It was also a whole heap of fun as you can see from the photos. 

Introduction to Philo, Sophocles and Pamphile

Inventing Waterwheels with Philo

The children learnt about the invention of the waterwheel and were set an engineering challenge. They had to first come up with their own hypothesis about the height and speed of the water that would make the waterwheel work most effectively, then test their theories. 

We discussed the effect that gravity had on the effectiveness of the waterwheel, as well as why the water running too slow or too fast would make it less efficient. 

Greek Theatre with Sophocles

We learnt about how different theatre was in Ancient Greece and how Sophocles' introduction of masked actors portraying the action and emotion had a huge impact of people's experience of theatre. The children learnt the story of Pandora's Box, and chose characters from the story to portray. They then decorated masks, concentrating on exaggerating the facial features to represent emotions.

The children then used their masks to support the telling of the story.

Spinning Silk with Pamphile

The children looked at a silk worm's cocoon and learnt about how Pamphile was the first weaver of silk. We then had a chance to have a go at weaving ourselves. We looked at the impact that this had on our local history, discussing Cromford Mill. Cromford Mill is the world's first water-powered cotton spinning mill, developed by Richard Arkwright in 1771. We discussed how this then led to spinning and weaving now being done by machines.

Ancient Greek Olympics

We learnt that the first ancient Olympic Games can be traced back to Olympia in 776 BC. We then held our own mini competition with children using Ancient Greek jumping weights to do the long jump. It was a VERY close competition!