The Weald and Downland Living Museum offers a great opportunity to start exploring different subject areas at Key Stage 1.
Our high quality cross-curricular workshops support the topics and themes of the National Curriculum. From science and design and technology to English and history there is bound to be something to meet your needs.
To find out more about each workshop click on the links below.
Self-Guided Visits
A self-guided visit to the Weald and Downland Living Museum is an excellent way of enriching Key Stage 1 curriculum studies. From the Anglo-Saxon to Edwardian era, it will help Key Stage 1 learners to understand how people built, lived and worked in the past and make comparisons with their lives today.
A self-guided visit allows you to explore in your own time and our Resources page has materials to help you prepare as well as activities to support a visit.
Tours Through Time
Duration: 1 hour
Cost: £50 for 15 pupils
Join us on an interactive journey through time where your tour guide will take you on a whistle-stop tour of 4 different houses from 4 different time periods. Pupils will be challenged to spot the difference between the houses and take part in an immersive hands-on activity at each stopping point along the way which will help bring the history of each house to life and enable a better understanding of what it was really like to live in the past!
Choose from the following tour options:
1. Saxon to Tudor Tour (stops at Saxon House, Hangleton, Boarhunt and Bayleaf)
2. Victorian to Medieval Tour (stops at Whittakers, Victorian school, Bayleaf and Boarhunt)
Expect to take part in historical crafts, horrible chores, lessons in apothecary and become time travelling detective along the way.
How to Book
Visit our Plan & Book page for all the information you need to organise and book a visit, including prices.
Online booking formNeed More Information?
Please email schoolbookings@wealddown.co.uk or call us on 01243 811459
Onsite Workshops
Three Little Pigs Mini Builders Workshop
Duration: 1 hour
Cost: £50
This lively, interactive workshop brings the tale of the Three Little Pigs to life. Though hands-on, investigative activities pupils explore materials and their properties to learn about building techniques in the past.
They then use their detective skills to discover what some of our houses are made of, before finding the chimney used by the Big Bad Wolf.
What will they do?
- Hear the story of The Three Little Pigs and have it brought to life
- Take part in hands-on activities investigating and building with the three materials – straw, sticks and bricks – to test their strength and suitability for building
- Visit houses made from bricks, sticks and straw to take part in a detective activity and make comparisons with modern buildings today
How to book
Please complete our Online Booking Enquiry Form
Alternatively, call us on 01243 811459 or email schoolbookings@wealddown.co.uk
Time Travellers: Homes in the Past
Duration: 1 hour
Cost: £50
Take your group back in time to discover how people lived in the past. What were their homes like? Where did people sleep, wash and cook? What furniture and equipment did they have?
Pupils will explore an Anglo-Saxon, Tudor or Victorian home to discover and compare the differences with homes today. Along the way there will be hands-on activities exploring rooms and their uses plus demonstrations to further enhance learning.
What will they do?
- Match the object to the task challenge – with artefacts from the collection
- Which room is it? Using cut away models follow the clues to guess its use and find the right furnishings
- Visit homes from the past with some hands on tasks
How to book
Please complete our Online Booking Enquiry Form
Alternatively, call us on 01243 811459 or email schoolbookings@wealddown.co.uk
Shelters and Survival
Duration: 1 hour
Cost: £50
Test your class’s survival and problem solving skills in this session aimed at building confidence and team working.
During the workshop, pupils will learn a skill that has been past down through the ages to create a shelter/windbreak. With hands-on demonstrations and activities, they have a go at using tools before learning how to safely light a fire without matches. They then search for edible plants and discover some of the other uses of plants and trees in the past.
What will they do?
- Work together to hold and manipulate wood to weave a section of wattle fencing and make a shelter using the same techniques and materials as people in the past
- Have an opportunity to handle and use tools in a carefully supervised setting
- Watch a fire lighting demonstration
- Hunt for some of the wild foods eaten in the past e.g. Waybread
How to book
Please complete our Online Booking Enquiry Form
Alternatively, call us on 01243 811459 or email schoolbookings@wealddown.co.uk
Farm to Fork
Duration: 45 minutes
Cost: £40
Our farmer is hungry but can we get his lunch ready on time? In this hands-on workshop, pupils follow the story of everyday foodstuffs from field to fork.
They take part in activities to find out where the ingredients for lunch come from and discover the processes of bread-making from wheat to loaf, before taking part in our bake off challenge to make rolls in time for lunch.
What will they do?
- Take part in a ‘Where does our food come from?’ activity investigating farmyard animals and what they produce
- Use tools and handle artefacts from the Museum’s collection
- Carry out traditional farm activities – e.g. using a flail and quern stone
- Visit the Lurgashall Mill to see the cogs in action and learn how grain is ground into flour
- Visit the baker in Newdigate Bakehouse to knead and shape dough for a bread roll to take home
- Have a chance to see some of the weird and wonderful farming tools used in the past
How to book
Please complete our Online Booking Enquiry Form
Alternatively, call us on 01243 811459 or email schoolbookings@wealddown.co.uk
All in the Game: Playtime in the Past
Duration: 45 minutes
Cost: £40
What toys did children have in the past? What sort of games did they play? Take a peep into our toy box to find out about and play with toys from the past.
This hands-on investigative workshop introduces pupils to the concept of ‘old and new’ and ‘past and present’ encouraging them to think about children’s lives in the past. They examine toys, looking at materials and condition to decide which is old or new and then have a chance to play themselves with our replica Tudor and Victorian toys.
What will they do?
- Take part in a Mystery object and toy box activity
- Handle old and new toys to explore materials and how they were made, voting which is old/new
- Toy timeline challenge – sort a range of toys into ‘older’ and ‘newer’
- Play indoor and outdoor games including cup and ball, skipping ropes, stilts, hoop and stick, skittles and hobby horse, knuckle bones and quoits
- Have a go at Victorian animation with flick books and zoetrope
How to book
Please complete our Online Booking Enquiry Form
Alternatively, call us on 01243 811459 or email schoolbookings@wealddown.co.uk
Fire in the Bakehouse
Duration: 45 minutes
Cost: £40
Why was fire such a risk in the 1600s? This workshop uses a visit to a 17th century house and bakehouse to explore why fires were so common and how an event like the Great Fire of London came about.
During the session, pupils learn about fire lighting and the elements needed for it to take hold. They investigate historic buildings to discover how an accidental spark could have serious consequences and visit our bakehouse to learn about fire precautions in the past, before going on to prepare bread for the oven.
What will they do?
- Watch a fire lighting demonstration and have a go a creating a spark themselves
- Visit a 17th century house to see how it was built and investigate why the flames spread so quickly
- Mystery object handling activity
- Take part in a 17th century fire-fighting activity
- Visit a 17th century bakehouse to see the oven and learn about fire precautions
- Have a go at kneading bread – later baked to take home
How to book
Please complete our Online Booking Enquiry Form
Alternatively, call us on 01243 811459 or email schoolbookings@wealddown.co.uk
Nature Explorers
Duration: 1 hour
Cost: £50
Join us on a nature safari! Searching our woodlands armed with an explorer kit, pupils investigate the creatures, trees and plants that call our woodlands home.
Taking part in activities that engage the senses and promote wellbeing, and working as nature detectives to look, listen and touch, they investigate habitats, searching for creepy crawlies, trees and plants, comparing and contrasting species. They discover the important role they all play in maintaining the ecosystem and how living things, including humans, depend on each other to survive.
What will they do?
- Look for and learn to identify mini beasts on a woodland bug hunt
- Get to know a tree – hands-on activities investigating the leaves, seeds, bark and height to record in a log book
- Visit our coppice woodland and charcoal burners’ camp to learn how people in the past utilised and sustained woodlands
- Match the use challenge – highlighting how natural woodland materials were and can be used
- Take part in activities that engage the senses and promote wellbeing
How to book
Please complete our Online Booking Enquiry Form
Alternatively, call us on 01243 811459 or email schoolbookings@wealddown.co.uk
Meet the Farm Animals
Duration: 1 hour
Cost: £50
A fun and experiential session where pupils learn about different animals, how they are looked after and aspects of farming in the past.
Touring the site, pupils visit our animals to learn about them and life on the farm in the past. They have a go at farm chores and find out what it takes to be a farmer before going on to make a big Old MacDonald scarecrow using recycled materials.
What will they do?
- Explore the barns, farmyard and farmhouses
- Meet the animals, discovering where they live and what they eat
- See the horses and learn what jobs they did in the past
- Have a go at simple farm chores e.g. using a quern stone, threshing, feeding the ducks
- Have a chance to see some of the weird and wonderful farming tools used in the past
- Make a scarecrow to protect the crops
How to book
Please complete our Online Booking Enquiry Form
Alternatively, call us on 01243 811459 or email schoolbookings@wealddown.co.uk
