5 Jun 2008 - Evacuated!

The children in Badgers class were transformed into children from the 1940's.  All dressed up with their gas mask boxes and name labels tied on tight, they waved a farewell to their parents, as they did not know for how long they would be evacuated for!

 

 

They travelled to Milden Barn, in Boxford and Juliet Hawkins took them in hand.  The first job of the morning was to prepare some food, as it really was a case of living off the land in the 1940's.  Mr Hawkins had shot some rabbits the night before and had to skin them.  Those who felt a bit queasy went off to feed the chicks, but those who stayed to watch found it all quite thrilling!  James and Alice even got the chance to skin a rabbit each.  I think they found it much harder then they thought it would be.

                  

 

 

The skinned rabbits were taken off to the kitchen and cooked with onions and mushrooms.  It tasted rather good and some children came back for seconds!

 

Next job was to collect the eggs and clean out the chicken coop.  It was boys against girls, to see who could shovel out the most from the coop.  For the girls it was a resounding victory!

    

 

	There was no time for a break, as the next job was to collect firewood from the small wood, carry it across the meadow and stack it in the digger.  It was hard work and there was good team work.  Sadly for the boys, the girls won this challenge as well.
For something a little different, the children got the chance to do some field walking and find some archeaological remains.  A varied amount of things were found; Roman pottery, old bottles, old penny coins, empty shell cases, and most exciting of all (for Louis), a grenade!

          

 

There was one job left to do before the children were reunited with their parents, hoeing the weeds between the sugar beet.  As they found there was a technique, which is not to dig up the sugar beet!  This time the boys did a great job and won the challenge.

http://www.elmsettschool.ik.org/attachments/Movie-1.wmv (small video clip 479KB opens in Real Player)

 

 

The children had a fantastic time and learnt alot about life as an evacuee.  When they got back to school they had a picnic on the field and ate Honey Cakes.  They even got the chance to make up a song about their day.  The chorus went like this:

 

Hey Ho, Louis found a grenade

Hey Ho, cleaning hens with a spade!