Today we had a special visitor in Year 1!

As part of our Childhood topic we are learning about toys from the past and linking this more specifically to the Victorian times. Today we found out that the Victorian times were over 100 years ago and that many aspects of Victorian’s lives were very different to ours now. We have been focusing specifically on toys today and comparing what children used to play with to what we are able to play with today, in the present times.

We started off by finding out that in the Victorian times there was no electricity and no plastic!! This meant that lots of the toys which we play with now couldn’t have existed all those years ago. Lots of us were able to talk about plastic toys that we have at home such as microphones, trains, cranes and different character figures, all of which need batteries to help make them create sound or move. So… if these things were invented during the Victorian times then what could the toys have been made of?

Luckily last week in Year 1 we had been learning all about everyday materials! This came in really useful as we were able to think back to other materials that we know about and begin to think about if they are ‘new’ and human made using machines or if they are natural and possibly ‘older’ which could have been made by hand. We eventually decided on the these materials as the ones that we think toys in the past could have been made of; wood, metal, fabric, glass, ceramic or china and paper.

Our visitor bought in lots of exciting toys that we had never seen before and just as we thought.. lots of them were made from wood and metal! Well done year 1!!

Once we had been shown the toys and how to use them, we had a go at trying them out for ourselves. This was really exciting as there were so many that we hadn’t used before! During this time, some of us looked at an assortment of different toys over time and started to order them in a timeline from oldest to newest. Again, thinking back to the materials that we know are newer than others. We then swapped over so that everyone had chance to explore all of the toys from the past. Finally, to finish off our session we ordered some different dolls as a class. We had to look at them, their materials and their designs to help us decide how to order them from oldest to newest. We even learnt that when you order objects, events or other things in this way it is called chronological order!!

You can see lots photos below from the morning. We had a brilliant time!

Both myself and Mrs Jones were really impressed with how welcoming and polite all of the children were when our visitor was here. There was lots of enthusiasm and joining in answering questions, as well as people having a go even when they weren’t sure! What a brilliant attitude!  A huge well done Year 1.. we can’t wait for even more fun this year!