Workshop Programme
Our education workshops take place in the galleries and our education room. They include role-play activities and the opportunity to handle original museum objects. All workshops are £2 per pupil (plus the £3.50 child entrance fee to the museum for non-York schools) and are suitable for a maximum group of around 30 pupils, unless otherwise stated. They can be booked until the end of the 2008/9 school year.
Early Years
Suitable for pre-school to Year One pupils
Nursery Rhyme Time
1 hour
Come along for nursery rhyme fun. This active workshop encourages children to recognise and have fun with traditional rhymes. Children will make a hickory-dickory-dock clock to take home, use role play and props, look at items from the collection and match them to the nursery rhyme, sequence familiar rhymes and lots more.
Primary School
Toys Through Time
Key Stage 1
1 hour
Help us to explore our old toy-chest and uncover toys through time. Through hands-on exploration and discussion, pupils investigate the appearance, similiarities and differences, materials and forces that power our toys.
I Spy: Moving Picture Toys
Key Stage 1
1 hour
Seeing is believing when pupils explore a range of wonderfully mesmerizing old and new moving picture toys. They then take a trip to our Victorian toy shop and use a Vicorian penny to buy the materials they need to make their own to take back to school.
We're All Going on a...1950s Seaside Holiday!
Key Stage 1
Summer term only
1 hour 30 minutes
Come and find out how grandma and granddad spent their childhood summers in our fun, 1950s seaside session. Children watch archive footage of families on holiday in the 1950s before preparing for our journey to the seaside through drama activities. They will learn songs from the period, before playing some traditional beach-front games. All in all, a grand day out!
Spotless! A Victorian Wash Day
Key Stage 1
1 hour
Dolly White is about to start her weekly wash and is keen to emply extra helping hands. Using the latest in Victorian laundry appliances, a pooser and a dolly tub, children are soon set to work, for a taste of Victorian domestic life. As they move aroudn the activities pupils are also challenged to answer our "pong" questions and identify Dolly's Mystery Objects!
The Victorian Schoolroom
Key Stage 2
1 hour
Pupils will be glad to get back to your classroom after an hour with our Victorian school teacher! After a cleanliness inspection of their hands pupils will experience the latest in 19th Century teaching, including some mental arithmetic and a poem recital. Oh, and not forgetting drill, of course! "Sit up straight or we will get the back-straighteners out!"
Troubled Times In Victorian York
Key Stage 2
1 hour
Our Victorian Street, Kirkgate, is always full of characters, but none are quite like Joseph Beedham, street-trader and loveable rogue. But when, at the end of a tour of Kirkgate, Jospeh is arrested for theft, it is the pupils who must become his jury and help to decide his fate.
For Richer or Poorer: Everyday Life in Victorian Times
Key Stage 2
1 hour
Mr and Mrs White are simple, hard-working folk. Join one of them as they explore our Victorian Parlour and Moorland Cottage period rooms, comparing and contrasting the everyday differences of the wealthy and poor in Victoria's Britain. Through artefact handline, sorting activities, observation and discussion with our character, pupils discover how social class governed all aspects of life in the Victorian period.
Guess Who in World War Two: A Missing Person's Case
Key Stage 2
1 hour
Pupils must become detectives to reveal the owners of four discarded suitcases in our World War 2 Lost Property Office. Through investigations of the contents and additional clues, pupils focus their analytical skills to identify, not only which of our characters each case belongs to, but also why they may have been in such a rush they forgot it.
The Swinging Sixties
Key Stage 2
1 hour 30 mins
Swing on down to the museum and explore the decade when the cars and the skirts were mini! Pupils visit our SIXTIES exhibition and are plunged into the vibrant sights and sounds of 1960s Britain, they will try on costumes, listen to music, furnish some dolls' houses and even 'launch' a space rocket. This session uses real artefacts and archive footage to set the decade in its post war context, giving pupils an appreciation of how radically different the 60s were from the preceding decades.