We were in Neasden today for our first ever visit to Mitchell Brook Primary. We were in a really big hall and the school is lucky enough to have two, which is great as it meant we had the hall for the whole day.
we were running our KS1 Castle Life workshop for Year 1. We had 4 groups over the day and with each group that came through we looked at food, knights & armour and medieval clothing.
In the food area we made flour on the quern & butter in the churns. We also looked at how food was cooked in a cauldron or baked in a wood fired oven. We also got to trial our newly spitted goose.
We then moved on to look at the armour a knight would have worn. We found out why knights wore armour and what it was made from. We learnt how young you could start learning to be a knight, starting as a page boy and become a squire and finally a knight. We looked at all the different pieces of armour and worked out where a knight would wear them. Karen was very impressed by lots of knight knowledge. Then we got to try some on. Then it was time to see what we’d learnt and to put the knight back together in order. All the pieces went back in the right places, even if occasionally upside down! Finally everyone got to hold a real blunt knights sword.
Then it was time to move on to the clothing and try on some medieval clothing. There were all sorts of clothes from servant to posh knight & lady. We found out that men did wear underwear but women didn’t! Then we looked at the various different clothes and what they were made from, we passed around some bits of silk and a silk cocoon. We found out that lots of the clothes were made from wool, which helped to keep people nice and warm in the castle as it was cold when you weren’t standing next to the fire. Then everyone got to try on some clothes and have their picture taken.
Finally it was time to get everyone back together and find out which bits everyone liked most and if we’d managed to make flour & butter in the time. Success! We managed it in nearly every churn throughout the day.
Well done Mitchell Brook, we hope you enjoyed your day and we’ll see you next time hopefully. A huge thank you to the caretaker who was waiting to greet us on our arrival and direct two lost looking people, trying to work out where to park!