Spring 2
Building Bridges
As Walca's settlement expands, it’s becoming increasingly important to trade with other settlements. In particular, Walca wants to trade some of our crops with a man called Pitt (who owns an ore mine) for some iron ore. This iron ore will allow our settlement’s blacksmiths to make better farming equipment, tools and weapons.
Walca asked the children to design and build a bridge that can cross the largest river to allow two men to lead a pony-pulled cart over it. When the cart is full of ore, it will weigh 4,500kg. The wheels of the cart are 2 metres apart. The river is 40 metres across, so the bridge needs to be around 45m long. To fit it in the classroom, we decided to build a smaller bridge that spans a length of at least 45cm, a width of 6cm and can hold a weight of 45g for 10 seconds.
The Anglo-Saxon Conversion to Christianity
When the Anglo-Saxons came to Britain, they were pagans, which means that they worshipped many gods of nature. Because the Anglo-Saxons were pagans, the Pope (Christian leader in Rome) decided that he needed to send a missionary to convert them to Christianity. He sent a missionary called Augustine, whose boat landed in Kent around AD 597. He taught the Jutes about Christianity and in AD 627 King Edwin became the first Anglo-Saxon king to become Christian.
Meanwhile, in Hibernia and the North of Britannia, there were other men who travelled around and taught about Christianity. Columba, Aidan and Cuthbert taught people in the North of Britain about Christianity. Perhaps most famously, a Briton who was taken into slavery in Ireland at the young age of 16 would grow up to teach the Irish about Christianity - St Patrick.
As most people couldn't read or write, imagery was often used to show parts of the Bible stories. In class, we looked at symbols of Christian saints and made our own stained glass panels (some based on symbols of saints and some based on other symbols of significance).
