Year 2 Visit to Black Country Living Museum
As part of our Bostin' Black Country topic, Year 2 took a visit to the Black Country Living Museum, to participate in a Little Makers visit. The focus of the trip was to look at the landscape of the Black Country, thinking about how it got its name and how it has changed over time.
We began our morning , by meeting our lovely guide Caitlin who took us to the head of the mine to look at the coal that the Black Country was famous for.
Our next stop was to visit the boat yard and canal. Here we learnt about how the boaters were very important in transporting the coal around not just the Black Country but all of Britain! We heard stories of the boaters travels and admired his colourful boat and learnt how important the decorations were.
"My favourite part was going to see the boats. Them an told us he lived on the boat, and he and his family had to sleep on them. That would be really cool" Logan
Our tour continued to the chain makers, where we were lucky to see sparks flying at the demonstration of how chains were made. We learnt that the men worked on larger chains for 6 hours a day, but women had to work for 12 hours a day making the smaller chains.
"I liked seeing the chain being made. He used the fire to make it red then hit it with a hammer. The sparks went far." Nicky
We stopped to enjoy a film in the old cinema in someone's back garden!
"The cinema was my favourite bit. It was really funny when Donald Duck was getting angry at the mice. The seats weren't comfy though like at the normal cinema." Walter
We stopped off at the hardware shop to see what could have been bought in the past. Lots of objects we still have today like a bath, a toaster and a carpet cleaner. But they look very different now than in the past.
"Girls had to go into the shop first, and boys last... so that the boys don't see their ankles! The boys held my hand when I came out at the end" Luna
We finished the day with a sketching lesson as we drew some of the Black Country landscapes we had seen during our visit. We learnt to think about what goes in the background, middle ground and foreground.
"the drawing was my favourite part. I liked to draw the different buildings, people and animals we saw on the trip." Fatima
