As part of their History Unit, ‘Then and Now’, Year 2 students had an incursion with visitors from Newstead House, exploring how our lives, washing and cooking has changed over time.
There were looks of shock when students got to try their hand at hand-washing like our early settlers, seeing how cleaning one handkerchief-sized piece of cloth took so much effort! But they embraced the experienced and loved doing a little ‘Dolly dance’ as they swashed the cloth around in soapy water.
They then met an old Newstead House ‘resident’ who took them on a tour of the garden to find useful plants. They took in the scent of each plant and made their own sachet of lavender to take home.
Each student also got to try some old lawn games and handle historical items that were used in everyday life. They got quite the taste of yesteryear throughout the day.