As part of our Victorian topic in World Around Us, P7s visited the Civic Centre in Carrickfergus to experience a more 'hands on' approach to learning about aspects of our theme.
We were able to learn how real people from the Weatherup family, who resided in Carrickfergus (next door to what is now Maud's Icecream) lived in late Victorian times. We learned about the roles of the various members of the family and their responsibilities; we learned about their servants and what their jobs where, their long working hours. We learned that the youngest servant, Lizzie (13), was a 'part-timer': in other words, she worked in the house all morning, but then went to school in the afternoon!
We were also able to handle some Victorian artefacts, which enabled us to understand how different life was. For example, we compared a Victorian iron, which needed to be heated up on the stove, to our irons. We saw the huge block of soap, which would be used in conjunction with the washboard, to wash the clothes and we understood how much easier it is to simply switch on the washing machine ... !
All in all, it was a very informative morning and we decided that, perhaps, school wasn't such a bad place after all, for a child.
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