Year 4 had an amazing time visiting St Albans. We went to visit the museum on the site of the Roman city of Verulamium to develop our Historical skills and knowledge of the Romans. We learnt about the Celtic people who lived in Verulamium before the Romans came and how their lives changed with the Roman invasion.
We had a workshop, in which we dressed up as rich and poor Romans and we pretended to go shopping for food, clothing and other Roman items from a shopping list – so we had to work out what the items might have looked like in Roman times. We learnt that poor children’s clothes were plain, but rich people’s might be patterned. We learnt that boys had a chance to be better educated than girls, they also had two names but girls only had one which was based on their father’s name. Boys’ names ended –us and girls’ names ended with an –a.
Exploring the Museum, we learnt about different areas of Roman life in Verulamium. In their spare time Romans played board games, watched gladiator fights and visited the theatre. They worked as metalworkers and there were workshops making glass objects. They also worked as builders, making buildings to live in and for the gladiators to fight in. There was a market to supply the town.
The Romans built a huge wall around the city to protect it and we visited the remains of the wall.
We also visited the remains of a villa with a hypocaust. This is an underfloor heating system. A fire was used to warm air that was channelled underneath the floor so the warmth rose up and heated the building.
What a great day of interactive and fun learning!
