1C History Lesson 1

Lesson: History

Class: Year 1 - 1C Year: 2021 - 2022

The Great Fire of London

Lesson 1 - What was the Great Fire of London?

The children were first presented with an old leather bucket containing the following items;

A scroll -          A quill -     Baked bread -     and a candle holder -  

We discussed what the items were and what they would be used for. We then observed and talked about a scorched item of clothing and a piece of burned wood. The children made connections with the items being possibly burned in a fire and that this may have happed in the past.

We then researced further and discovered that there was a famous fire in London that took place in the year of 1666. It started in a bakery in Pudding Lane which was owned by a man called Thomas Farriner. The fire was so big, it was named The Great Fire of London. The fire lasted for 4 days and burned down over 13000 homes. Miraculously, only 6 deaths were ever recorded!.

After learning lots of interesting yet surprising facts, the children went to work in groups to generate some enquiry based questions that they would like to ask the teacher. The questions needed to be open ended questions so that they could gain further information about the fire and the events surrounding this tragic event. Some of the questions asked were;

Who started the fire?                                                                                                                                              How did they put the fire out if there were no fire engines?                                                                                  Why did the fire spread so far?                                                                                                                              What did they use to put the fire out?                                                                                                                    Where did the people go to escape the fire?                                                                                                          When did it all end?

We then used role play to see what it may have been like to tray and put a fire out with only a bucket and a line of helpers.