Life in the trenches was like nothing the soldiers had ever experienced before. ‘Digging in’ as it was called was a fairly new phenomenon. But living in the mud and squalor surrounded by giant cat-sized mice become wearisome very quickly. The young men had signed up to fight for their country and believed that excitement…
Category: History – Nineteenth Century
Siege of Liege Activities {World War I}
World War One is complicated and convoluted, and (IMHO) should never (ever) have happened. Learning about it is like watching a line of dominoes falling over and being completely unable to prevent what happens next. I have had to teach myself, over and over, to fully understand what happened to create the breeding ground for…
How to Make a First World War Map
Making this First World War map was trickier than any of my other map making endeavours. Because I am pretty relaxed about how any of my maps end up looking, I free handed it. This is not for the faint hearted, especially when you have teenagers looking over your shoulder pointing out what you’ve missed/forgotten…
Edwardian Unit Study Presentation
We have just finished a five month long study on the early nineteen hundreds. We have learnt such a lot, from reading books published at this time, to science studies on flight and ships, to the great Antarctic explorers of this era. The girls have worked hard to understand the suffragette movement and the sinking…
David Livingstone {1870-1880}
The children learnt all about David Livingstone, a Victorian doctor who traveled to Africa as a missionary. We read the following book on his life and watched the Victorian Pharmacy, an excellent dvd on medicines available during the Victorian times: But most of our work was based on an extensive David Livingstone learning pack which I…
Charles Darwin {1860-1870}
The nineteenth century was a fascinating time for scientific theory and new discoveries, from Russian, Dmitri Mendeleev's Periodic Table, (which arranged all the known elements according to their atomic weight), to Louis Pasteur's discovery that microscopic organisms caused disease, exciting progress was being made in all areas of science. Perhaps the most well known, not to mention…
Florence Nightingale {1850-1860}
The 1850s were an interesting time with, firstly, the start of both the Crimean war between Russia and her ally Turkey and allies Britain and France and the second Opium war (between Britain and China). Secondly, there was the publication of well known novels such as Moby Dick and Uncle Tom's Cabin. Thirdly, the Great Exhibition,…
Edgar Degas {Impressionist}
For her project last term Lillie learnt all about the Impressionist painters. She studied one artist for two weeks. The latest has been Edgar Degas, which was very nearly a disaster! But Lillie came up trumps and I think we both agreed that this was one of her best studies 🙂 Edgar Degas: General Resources…
Charles Dickens {Victorian Unit}
This week our focus was on Charles Dickens and the Victorian poor. Oh my, I had fun this week! The children not so much, but I took huge delight in threatening to starve my children with a Poor Law diet....in fact, I 'made' them be poor Victorians for a day. Yes, a day. The fuss…
Victorian Working Class
I wanted the girls to experience the life of a Victorian Working Class. This was a small social experiment the children and I carried out over one school day. We will be doing something similar when we come to world wars and I thought it might be fun to have experienced the Poor Law Food…
Grimm’s Fairy Tales – Cinderella
I was very excited about this Grimm’s Fairy Tales - Cinderella unit! I'd had so many ideas floating about in my head to one day making them into a unit study. None had ever come to fruition. Now, though, seemed the perfect time to resurrect them. The older ones and I were studying the 19th century…
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert {1830-1840}
This post is a hodge podge of all things Victorian Related that we have studied over the past three months which don't fit in well with any of my other 19th century posts. I have focussed much of our work on Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert: Resources Books The…
Victorian Composers {1820-1830}
The Romantic Period, a time in history where composers wished to reduce their listeners to tears and melt their hearts, ran from around 1825 to 1900. So this week I chose to study the Victorian composers of this time. To be honest, this was a tough week for me to plan. I am so very…
Jane Austin {1810-1820}
The 1810s were a busy time with George III officially being recognised as insane; the United States Congress declaring war on Britain; the Great (financial) Panic of 1819; Queen Victoria's birth and the Napoleonic wars coming to an end. As you can see, a whole heap of important events occurred during the early 19th century,…
Nineteenth Century World History: 1800-1810 {Transatlantic Slave Trade and its Abolition}
There was a whole heap of interesting stuff going on in the early 1800's. Great Britain was indeed great and steaming forth as leaders in the industrial revolution (steaming? Geddit?!); the East India company is growing, increasing Britain's influence over the world; Napoleon becomes known as an invincible leader; Morphine is isolated, making opium a lot…