Here’s a set of activities that children and young people can do as part of their home learning.
While keeping to the rules of social distancing, the activities encourage children and young people to ask their parents, grandparents and neighbours about their lives in the present and in the past. Using items from our collection, the fun tasks involve postcards, top trumps, mini dramas, dream clouds and interviews to help develop skills in historical inquiry as well as keeping up social interaction.
If you could be anywhere now… where would you be? Would this be your
favourite place? Who would you be with? It could be in Saltaire, in Bradford or
it could be anywhere in the world… it could be in the past, in the present or in
Design and write a postcard for a friend or family member.
There have been all sorts of new games and entertainments since Saltaire was built over 150 years ago.
Which toys, books and songs do you have in common with your relatives?
Saltaire has lots of hidden heroes and heroines, the builders, people of business, engineers, teachers, sports players, fundraisers, reformers, suffragists, M.P.s and others who never stopped trying to help other people.
Who is your hidden hero or heroine?
The Saltaire Collection has spoken histories about people who migrated from Pakistan, Italy, Ireland and Poland (to name a few) to Saltaire and Bradford, to work in the mills, in the 1950s.
Did anyone in your family migrate to Bradford?
Soap opera storylines of Saltaire and Bradford
Although the soaps are currently cancelled, that doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t an exciting soap opera within your family or within your community.
Salts Mill had its own link to the spotlight in the 1970s, when Pamela Mason, a film actress and Hollywood chat show host was one of its owners. She battled with other owners over control of the mill.
Is there a ‘bit of a drama’ that your family wouldn’t mind sharing? Or do you have a famous connection?
Saltaire…it’s what dreams are made of!
Titus Salt believed that through his mill and model village, he could not only be a successful businessman but that he could also give working class people a better standard of living. Jonathan Silver had a different dream for Salts Mill but it has proven to also be successful and has given Saltaire its ‘arty’ edge.
Do you have a family member or neighbour that has an inspirational story that they could share with you?
The heroic story of a ‘guinea pig’: Geoffrey Page, Forged by Fire: A Graphic Novel
Read Geoffrey Page’s story, carry out an investigation and write a diary entry for either him or one of the people who helped him to be a hero.