London's Burning!

Spring Term History - The Great Fire of London

This term in Year 1 and 2, we have really enjoyed learning about the Great Fire of London in our History and English lessons. 

We started off by doing some black hat thinking and identifying the things that we didn't know yet, but wanted to find out. Some of the children's questions included:

How did the fire start?

Why did it last for so long?

Did anybody die?

Did Mr Pepys really care so much about his cheese?

Then we put our white thinking hats on to find out the facts. We used a range of different sources to research what happened to try to answer our questions:

We were then able to explain what happened on each day of the fire from when it started at 2am on Sunday 2nd September 1666, until it finally finished on Thursday 6th September 1666.

After this we put on our green thinking hats and got creative by looking at how Tudor houses were built. We made our own Tudor houses, and also had a go at making a wattle and daub panel by weaving in a wooden frame and then filling the gaps with salt dough. Although this was slightly different to the traditional daub mixture of wet mud, animal dung and straw, it was definitely preferable! This all helped us to consider Tudor building techniques and answer the question about how the fire spread through London so quickly. We decided that it was probably because the houses were all made of wood and flammable materials which made them burn quickly. They were also built very close together so the fire could jump from house to house easily.

Once we'd finished making our Tudor houses, we assembled them into a Tudor street and considered the idea of all of our hard work burning down.

We put on our red thinking hats and discussed the emotions and feelings that we would experience if something that we valued burnt down. This helped us to think about how the people of London in 1666 who lost their homes would have felt.

"I would feel frustrated because all my hard work would be ruined" (Bianca and Harry)

"I would feel sad because I wouldn't have a home any more" (Gabriella)

 "I would feel scared and frightened about having nowhere to live" (Wandile, Kiera and Rebeca)

"I would feel angry or furious because all the houses had burned down" (Abi, Tasha, Jack, Henno and Eno)

"I would feel sorry for all the people who had lost their homes" (Stacey)

"I would feel surprised because the fire spread so quickly and burned down so many houses" (Stephanie)

In our English lessons we've also been writing diary recounts as if we were there in 1666 and experienced the Great Fire of London first hand. There was some really imaginative writing in role. Have a look at Abi's diary entry:

We then put our white fact thinking hats back on to think about the similarities and differences between fire fighting techniques in 1666 with those used today.

Finally, we used both our yellow benefits and our black judgement hats to discuss Fire Safety. We were really lucky to have Melanie from Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service come in to talk to us all about Fire Safety. We learnt lots of things, including how to call 999 for the Fire Service, how to Stop, Drop and Roll if our clothes catch fire, and about how important it is to Keep Looking If You're Cooking! 

 Have a look at some of our posters to see what else we learnt about fire safety:

 We have had a great term learning all about the Great Fire of London and are now fire safety experts as well as historians!