Friday 2 March 2012

'A Tale Of One City' At Portsmouth City Museum.

Continuing with our exploration of all things Charles Dickens, yesterday our little 'Girls Study Group' visited Portsmouth's City Museum to look around the new 'A Tale Of One City' display.

We read a short story of Charles Dickens life and then the children explored the displays looking for evidence of the things we had read about.


There were masks to try out, a kitchen area where they could discover the fruit and vegetables available at the time and those which we enjoy freely now which would have been a luxury in Victorian England (bananas and pineapples!).


We looked at 'old money' . The UK money system became decimalised in 1971 and these displays show some of the coins which would have been in circulation up until that point.

There were question and answer boards based on Charles Dickens novels for the children to complete,
a knitted mouse hunt,
and a 'servant vs sailor' activity where Mimi tried the shoes shine challenge - she did really well !!
One of the mums brought an activity comparing the life of a poor Victorian child to that of a wealthy Victorian child, so the children all completed that at the workstation set up in the museum,

and then they were able to try Victorian schooling and practise writing on a slate,
Hannah said it was very tricky!

We finished our visit with a walk around the Victorian areas of the museum and found this large Victorian park scene mural,
a Penny Farthing,
a Victorian sitting room or parlour,
and some old photographs of the period.
Hannah really enjoyed the whole day and learned so much about the Victorian era, i definitely recommend visiting the 'Tale Of One City' if you are in the Portsmouth area

2 comments:

The Adventurer said...

Great looking museum. We really enjoyed studying about the Victorians last term. There was so much going on during that period:) Thanks for sharing on the Field trip hop

Dawn said...

What a cool museum. That was a wonderful tie in to your studies.
Blessings,
Dawn