This month we have been learning about The Great Famine. Our class loved learning about it and we learned lots of interesting facts about Ireland. Here are some of the facts we learned. We learned that ‘coffin ships’ were used by people to emigrate to countries like America, Canada and England and that they were called ‘coffin ships’ because so many people died on them. We learned that people had to make really tough decisions and journeys during the famine.
We have also been reading a novel based on the famine. It is called Under The Hawthorn Tree. It follows the lives of three kids during the famine who are trying to avoid being sent to the workhouse. They are trying to survive on their own. There are three books in the series and Kevin in our class has already finished the first and second book.
We did lots of different activities based on the famine during our English and History lessons. We pretended that we were children during the famine and wrote diary entries. Then we wrote pros and cons lists to decided whether we should emigrate or not. After this we were really able to empathise with the people that lived during the famine.
If you would like to learn more you can take a look at our display outside room 10.
By Room 10