As part of Grade 4’s unit Digging Into the Past, we visited Butser Ancient Farm and the Chertsey Abbey.  At the farm, students got to experience Iron Age Celts - roundhouses, war paint, wattling, making bricks and house gods; a Roman villa with hypocaust; and dug for artefacts in their archaeology fields.

 

… I learned how the Celts lived.  Families all slept in one bed.

... I learned about wattling.  That's how they made fences.

... The thatched roofs keep in the smoke, so the roundhouses get very smoky inside.  The roundhouses didn’t have chimneys so the smoke would go through the thatch to keep the bugs and birds out.  If they had a smoke hole, the roof would catch fire.

... We learned how to clunch – that’s mixing chalk, water, mud and straw to make mud bricks.

... Celts used chalk for war paint and use animal fat to jell their hair up for battle.

... Roman villas didn’t really suit England well because Rome is a lot warmer climate.  So, the houses the Romans built were really not very well suited for England….they were very hard to heat to keep warm.

... We learned some special ways to dig for artefacts.

... We had tons of fun.  grade 4 should go again next year.