As Year 4 have been learning about the Romans for a few weeks now, The Verulamium Museum in St Albans was the ideal place to go and look at some artefacts and find out more first hand.

Our day began with a workshop with one of the Museum’s very knowledgeable members of staff. The children were split into four groups and were sat at four different tables. On each of the tables was a selection of real and reproduced artefacts dating back to the Roman times. The items on two of the tables were all to do with eating, cooking and drinking; another table was entitled ‘Looking Good’ and the last had the theme of ‘Building’. The children had various tasks to do, mainly identifying the objects and their uses and comparing them to similar items today. This was great fun, there was so much discussion around each item and the children loved finding out what all the strange objects had really been used for.

We then had an hour to ourselves in the galleries of the Museum. The children had their sketch books with them and went off in small groups to find interesting artefacts to draw. We admired the huge, ornate mosaics that adorn the walls and floor of the museum and the children were able to touch them to see how they felt. Some children had a go at making mosaics with small terracotta tiles in a wooden tray; this was good practise as our next Art lesson is mosaic making!

After lunch, we took a walk in the park and went to visit ‘the mosaic in the park’. It is a wonderful piece of mosaic and has a fantastic example of the underfloor heating system that the Romans used. Then we crossed to the other side of the road and went to visit the remains of the Roman theatre. It is the last one of its kind in the UK and the children were pleased to have experienced its wonderful setting.

Museums are incredible places of inspiration and learning. The day certainly boosted Year 4’s enthusiasm and interest and they can’t wait to discover more about the Romans.