.png)
Workshop follow up activities - The Great Fire of London!
We hope your child had a fantastic time during their Great Fire of London workshop with us! Lots of fun was had learning about how the fire started & spread through hands-on outdoor activities. During the workshop the children covered key facts and also learned a few new skills too! Below we've shared an activity for children to recap this learning at home and demonstrate their new skills to you!
Some context . . .
Pudding Lane was where the Great Fire of London started, with a spark from the oven of Thomas Farriner, a local baker. Wattle and daub is a traditional method for building using interwoven sticks or twigs covered in mud or clay. It is how many of the buildings in London at the time of the fire were made, and after a long, hot summer, everything was very dry, leading the fire to spread quickly! The children learned how to create large wattle & daub structures in the workshop, for this activity they can recap their learning by creating some smaller but more complete structures at home!
We know it sounds tricky, but don’t worry - wattle and daub is simple to do! And this activity provides the perfect opportunity for you and your child to spend time outdoors (the natural environment is known to boost mental health and well-being) getting stuck into some traditional building methods. It also gives your child the opportunity to develop their gross and fine motor skills, problem-solving skills, scientific thinking and build their resilience when it comes to practical working (as it might not go to plan the first time!).
All the information you and your child need to create your own wattle and daub bakery construction can be found below! Just follow our instructions and you’re guaranteed to have fun!
What you will need:
- 12 sturdy twigs/sticks (3 for each wall of the bakery)
- Some thinner, bendy twigs
- Bucket of mud or clay
- Water
- Some natural resources to create a roof for your bakery (leaves, grass, straw etc.)
- Alternatively some recycled household items e.g. kitchen foil, greaseproof paper, or the cover of an old magazine
- A small outdoor area with grass or soft ground (a garden or local park/woodland would be perfect!)
- Somewhere to wash your hands afterwards!
Instructions for building the wattle & daub walls
1. Vertically, place your first three sturdy sticks into the ground (for a wall), a short distance apart from each other, in a straight line.
2. Placing one hand on the top of the stick (important for safety!), use your other hand to push and twist each one into the ground to make it secure.
3. Once your first three sticks are secure in the ground, begin to horizontally weave one of your thinner, bendy twigs through them - over, under, over, and push it down towards the ground (not all the way down though) to secure it.
4. Now weave your second thin twig, but the opposite way to the first - under, over, under and push it down so it is sat on top of the first twig.
5. Continue weaving the bendy twigs, starting the opposite way each time.
6. When you have a ‘wall’ completed, repeat the process to make the other three walls of the bakery in a square or rectangular shape.
7. Now that your wattle walls are built, using your ‘muddy mud’, scoop up a small amount of daub in each hand (just enough to fit between your fingers and thumb).
8. Press and squish the daub onto both sides of the wattle wall – making sure it sticks together by using your fingers to press into the sticks.
9. Continue to add your daub mixture until each wall is covered and securely stuck!
Now it’s time to add a roof!
1. Collect a variety of materials you think may be suitable for the roof.
2. Now think about which ones will be the most suitable - which are both strong enough and waterproof?
3. Build your roof using your chosen materials, these might be natural or ones that you’ve found around your house to test out too. This is your chance to be creative!
4. Once your bakery roof is built, gently pour or spray water on to it to see if it stays dry inside. You could place a ‘Thomas Farriner’ item inside to check!
5. Adjust your design as needed.
Congratulations! Thomas Farriner now has a new bakery so that he can continue to feed the people of London with his delicious bread!
Some further discussion points:
What are the properties of different materials?
Are they strong or weak? Waterproof or absorbent? Rigid or bendy? Do they bend, stretch or twist?
If you were building a bakery today, what materials would you choose to build it from?
What other things might you have to consider when constructing buildings in different parts of the world? Are there any different and difficult challenges you might face?
