GRACE DARLING

This half term we will be doing a series of history lessons based on Grace Darling.

Grace Darling was born in the Victorian era (24 November 1815).  You might want to start by drawing a little timeline to give your child a sense of when this was; put on the year your child was born, move backwards and write the year you were born, then your parents and grandparents.  Feel free to put other events on the timeline but make sure you put the year Grace Darling was born.

Explain that Grace was born so long ago that her life was very different from today. Tell your child that Grace would have had no electricity; ask for examples of things that are powered by electricity. Tell them that Grace would have had no light bulbs, so at night her only light would have been from a candle. Light a candle and turn out the lights in the classroom and shut blinds etc to make as much difference as possible. Describe how different Grace’s life was from theirs – e.g. she was part of a family of nine children, she didn’t go to school but was taught by her father in the lighthouse, they had no running water and had to row to the neighbouring island to collect the vegetables they grew and look after their animals.

More facts can be found on page 1 of the Grace Darling fact sheet. Show the children a picture of Grace and her family discuss the list of questions that they could answer by looking at a picture, e.g. What are they wearing? What are they doing? Does the picture show what is happening today or something that happened a long time ago? Ask if they have any other ideas for questions.

Activity:  Comparison

Divide a piece of paper in two.  On one side draw pictures to represent a day in the life of yourself and on the other side draw pictures to represent a day in the life of Grace Darling.