Swift Class are Terrible Tudors!

We have had an amazing day with Mr Adby from Partake History.

We began our day with Mr Adby showing us lots of Tudor artifacts. The children were able to handle these and discuss what each could be. The children came up with lots of suggestions and were amazed and shocked (and sometimes mildly disgusted) by what they actually were used for. We then sketched some of the artefacts which allowed the children to look at them in even more detail.

Mr Adby then taught us how to dance like they did in Tudor times. We created long lines by holding hands and following the leader. We then learned how to bow and curtsey like ladies and gentlemen at the Tudor court, hearing some gruesome facts about lice in the gentlemen's hats! (That's why they didn't show the inside of them when removing them when bowing!)

It turns out that, as a class, we are very talented at Tudor dancing!

Before lunch, Mr Adby brought in a spice chest and we were able to smell the different spices that the Tudors cooked with. We smelled and chewed a variety of spices including cloves, cinnamon, aniseed and carraway.

After lunch, Mr Adby dressed up Darcie and Basil as wealthy Tudor children. These clothes are actually replicas of those worn by the young Prince Edward and Princess Elizabeth and were very heavy.

We also had the chance to try writing with real feather quills and ink which was much trickier than we thought. We all had a go at writing Queen ELizabeth I's signature before writing our own names.

We ended the day back in the hall where we did more dancing and played a Tudor game: Hunting My Lord's Deer in the Park.

Mr Adby was super-impressed by the children: how well- behaved they were and how much they already knew about the Tudors.