As the children arrived at the Year 3 house on Monday, a fearsome Roman legion began to form and the excitement began to grow!
In the morning there were three activities. The first, about Roman everyday life, saw the children get the chance to hold items such as a strigil, used for cleaning yourself when bathing, Roman sandals, the xylospongium (otherwise known as a poo stick!) and to find out about garam (a salty sauce made from fermented fish guts). Secondly, the children were able to find out about some Roman board games and got the chance to play against their classmates. The first was a replica of a game found at Segedunum near Newcastle and the other was Delta, a game of skill which Roman children played. This traditionally involves nuts (we used glass beads) being thrown onto a triangle on the ground . The triangle is divided into 10 sections and after each child has thrown all 5 nuts, they count up their scores. The final morning activity saw Year 3 become researchers, finding the answers to a series of Roman questions from the resources they had.
In the afternoon it was time for battle drills and for the children to learn to be real Roman legionnaires.They found out about the armour worn and weaponry used by Roman soldiers and then practised some battle commands and learned about formations such as the famous Roman tortoise formation. A great time was had by all and the experience really brought the Romans topic to life.
Mr Wood
