The Great Fire of London April 25, 2007
Posted by Linda in : history , trackback
I like this display from Clare in the Sparklebox Displays Gallery. The use of a black background with the red mounting and border emphasises the dramatic nature of the subject. I think the flame shaped ‘fast facts’ work well too. I’d like to have seen the children’s work mounted onto red too and perhaps even shaped like the facts. It might be petty of me but I’d also like the work to be either lined up straight or deliberately skewed - just off square grates on my visual senses 
The Great Fire of London is an important topic for Year 2 history. The QCA guidelines give a good framework for dealing with what could be a difficult subject for Keystage 1 and seem to have the level about right.
With more TAs finding themselves teaching classes like History to cover PPA time I think we’ll see lessons sticking even closer to the QCA. It would be a shame though if they didn’t take the chance to explore some of the more interesting web based resources for the topic.
- The Museum of London has a Day by Day guide to the fire which is a bit like a blog.
- Samuel Pepys is an interesting site but it’s going to need a lot of interpreting for Year 2
- There are also some basic free downloads relating to the topic to use in displays available on the Sparklebox web site.
Thanks for mentioning our Learning Online site at the Museum of London. We also have a new site to complement the new London’s Burning exhibition here http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/English/EventsExhibitions/Special/LondonsBurning/. However at present the exhibition itself is more kid-friendly whilst the website is for a wider audience; later this year, though, we will be launching (with two other organisations) an extensive resource specifically for KS1 pupils (I believe) so please keep an eye out for that. Note that we also have an old exhibition microsite on Pepys: http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/archive/exhibits/pepys/
All feedback on either site is very welcome.
Looking good - many thanks for mentioning my website!