Thursday 26 April 2012

Loan box - Romans

The topic of our museum loan box session today was Romans. We borrowed some good books from the library around this subject but had not managed to read them much in advance due to Harry and Peter being ill for the last couple of weeks, so I will continue the topic over the coming weeks instead. We have been meaning to visit Segedunum Roman fort so this will be an ideal time to do it.


Harry was particularly interested in the wax writing tablet and one of our books includes a craft to make a writing tablet using clay so we will do this. He also liked the drop weight spindle, which included some wool to spin on it - we managed to work it out thanks to one of the dads who came along today with his family!


The coins depicting the image of the Emperor led us to some interesting discussions about the difference between an Emperor and our Queen.


Harry liked the statues of Mercury and the Cockerel. He is very interested in hearing myths and stories of the Gods since reading some of the Greek myths.


We held a stone roof tile, which was very heavy and I pointed out that we have tiles on our roof but that they are made from slate. Harry knew that the slate would have come from a quarry and wondered how it was made into tiles. Unfortunately my knowledge of tile making ended there so we will have to look into that further! As a boy who loves construction, Harry was amazed that the Romans invented concrete and I am sure we will be looking more at the building aspect of the Roman Empire.


This appears to have been a topic that will allow us a lot of further exploration, so hopefully more will follow in the near future.

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